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Redondo schools top South Bay in performance index improvement
by Jason Dietrich
Triple-digit improvement at two schools in the state's benchmark measure, and across-the-board boosts in the rest, have put Redondo Beach Unified School District at the head of the class in the South Bay.
Washington Elementary leaped 130 points out of a possible 1,000 in the state's Academic Performance Index, a statistical distillation of the Stanford Achievement, or SAT-9, tests taken last spring. The increase was the second highest in Los Angeles County, school officials said.
Birney Elementary raised its score by 103 points while Alta Vista Elementary boosted its score by 71.
All 13 of the Redondo Beach schools that took the tests smashed growth targets set for them by the state. Redondo Unified High School, the school that showed the least improvement with an 11-point rise, nearly doubled the six-point improvement requested by the state.
Schools Superintendent Bill Nunan credited teacher-training programs and efforts by staff to address the SAT-9 test for the district-wide spike in scores.
"This was a huge team effort. Teachers and staff spent a lot of time in the summer preparing, and this year they were able to really focus on their growth target and what they wanted to do academically," he said.
The API is the state's latest tool for holding schools accountable for their students' performance.
The state gives all schools an overall goal of scoring above 800 on the API. Schools that meet the goal or beat their previous score by a state-set percentage are eligible for extra funding. And while school officials haven't found out exactly how much of the $677 million set aside for the statewide bonuses will come Redondo's way, administrators are excited about the improvements their students made.
Having seen the SAT-9 tests the previous year, teachers strove for that improvement by making a point to hit on all the elements tested, said Nunan, without teaching to the test.
"We don't shorten down our curriculum but we do want to make sure we don't miss something that's going to be on the test. If the test is going to ask about a concept, we want to make sure the kids have been exposed to that," he said.
"If you just taught the test, you'd be through in two months. The APIs and the SAT-9 are an important test, but it's just one measure of a student's growth."
That growth was most noticeable at Washington Elementary. It's 130-point spurt let it grow from 615 to 745, within spitting distance of the target 800 mark that four Redondo schools have already leaped over.
Jeff Bordosky, principal at Washington Elementary, said the community involvement and teacher's commitment to reevaluation of their teaching techniques contributed significantly to the school's jump in scores.
"This has been a real commitment on the part of parents learning how to support kids at home and the teachers learning how to support them as best they can," he said.
Teachers have focused on helping parents teach their children. Monthly family reading nights, in which teachers instruct parents on improving their children's literacy, have consistently drawn about 150 parents and students. Students in danger of getting behind have been encouraged to join the school's after-school homework club.
In the classroom teachers have been applying techniques they learn in the district's summer classes on how to teach reading and writing, Bordosky said.
Small class sizes also let teachers zero in on problem points and departmental discussion groups, which have also helped teachers refine their teaching styles, especially in math instruction, Bordosky said. ER