Pleasant Hill Schools Lag Similar Schools on State Tests

Pleasant Hill, is your children learning? Data from the California Department of Education show that Pleasant Hill’s two middle schools and one high school continue to compare unfavorably to other schools in California with similar demographics when it comes to student performance on standardized tests.

In rankings released last week by the state, schools were given two scores ranging from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. One ranking shows the comparison with other schools in the state, and the second a comparison only with schools with similar demographics. Schools are only compared with others at the same level – elementary to elementary, middle to middle, and high school to high school.

Pleasant Hill Middle School ranked 7 on its statewide ranking and a 1 on its similar school ranking. That means that Pleasant Hill students outperform 70 percent of students statewide on standardized tests, but 90 percent of students at similar schools do better than Pleasant Hill middle schoolers.

Valley View Middle School ranked 8 statewide and 3 compared to similar schools.

College Park High School ranked 7 statewide and 1 compared to similar schools.

The newly released rankings are based on the three-digit Academic Performance Index (API) scores  which in turn are based on student performance on standardized tests given in 2011. 

Both middle schools surpassed the statewide performance target of 800 API. College Park High School earned a base API of 786. 

Also released were the 2011 Base API and Growth Target. These are ways of representing the school’s 2011 performance and the growth it was expected to make, under the state’s accountability system, in 2012. Once results from the 2012 testing are available, the Base and Growth numbers will be part of the calculation used to determine whether a school met its goal for improvement

More information is available on the state's API website.

Do you think test scores accurately reflect the quality of public education in Pleasant Hill? 

Reporting contributed by Betty Buginas