Alison Yin for EdSource Today

Alison Yin for EdSource Today

No students are taking Sat, ACT or Avant-garde Placement exams in 14 per centum of California'due south high schools, a surprising statistic for the committee considering whether to incorporate those measures into the Bookish Performance Index for schools.

Amongst alternative high schools serving at-risk populations, the number of students forgoing the tests is even higher – nearly fourscore pct of alternative schools don't have a unmarried student who takes the college admission tests or AP exams.

The data was presented Tuesday at a meeting of the Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee. The commission is trying to determine the all-time manner to measure how well schools are preparing students to succeed in college and careers and how to incorporate those measures into a revised API, as required by a 2022 state police force. The commission, which meets once again in August, will brand a recommendation to the State Board of Instruction odue north how best to run across the requirements of the constabulary.

The California Section of Education provided a breakdown of test-taking behaviors amidst California high school students every bit office of a give-and-take of whether SAT, Human activity and AP exam scores are effective measures to include in a new API scoring arrangement.

"It's non a loftier percentage, just there were more schools than nosotros would have expected that didn't accept whatever students taking the ACT, SAT or AP courses," said Keric Ashley, managing director of the assay, measurement and accountability department at the education section who is working with the committee. "We desire to await more than deeply into why that would be."

The numbers are based on an analysis of all schools with enrollment data for grades 11 and 12. Amid 2,534 traditional high schools with available data, 356 schools did not written report any students taking the SAT, ACT or AP exams in 2012-13. Rural schools and schools with high numbers of low-income students were more likely to have students not taking the tests than schools in suburban areas, according to the data.

Amid alternative schools, which serve at-risk or highly mobile students, 592 out of 757 schools did non take any students taking the exams.

State officials will present a more detailed assay at a future committee meeting to see what'south behind the numbers.

Even so, it is unlikely the committee will focus solely on those three exams equally an isolated mensurate of school success, Ashley said. The committee is considering a model that would provide multiple measures of how well schools are preparing students. The test scores are 1 possible factor that could be weighed, but other factors could include the number of students who complete career pathway programs and graduate with a document in a career field.

Some schools that don't report large numbers of students taking the college entrance and Advance Placement exams could be offering numerous career programs instead.

"That'due south the advantage of having a methodology like this," Ashley said, adding that it allows for a number of ways for schools to be evaluated.

The data revealed other examination taking patterns too:

  • Forty-iii percentage of students who graduated in 2012-13 took at to the lowest degree ane of the 3 tests – Sat, Human action or AP exam.
  • The lowest participation was among English language learners (21 percent), American-Indian students (27 percent), and depression-income, African-American and Latino students, which each had a participation rate of 34 percent.
  • There is pregnant overlap among students who took the college admissions exams, with 85 percentage of students who took the SAT also taking the Act; 86 per centum of ACT examination takers also took the Sabbatum.
  • Student success on the tests varied greatly. Only 41 pct of students who took the SAT achieved a score of 1550 out of a possible 2400, one of the established benchmarks for college success, and 57 pct accomplished a score of 21 out of a possible 36 on the ACT. Withal 74 per centum of students who took AP exams passed with a 3 or college on at least one test.

To get more than reports like this 1, click hither to sign up for EdSource'south no-cost daily email on latest developments in pedagogy.