The World Is Our Campus Volume 57, Issue 1
Arcadia High School 180 Campus Drive, Arcadia, CA
September 2008
API: Arcadia Proves Intelligence
on our web site:
theapachepowwow.com
Graphic by NURIA MATHOG
OPINION
Pg. 4
Summer Vacation Without the Break: An inside look on how AHS students spend their summers.
Photo by GREGORY ZAJAC
PERFORMING ARTS
Pg. 9
The 411: A simple guide to the major Performing Art groups on campus.
FEATURES
Photos by YENTL IP
Pg. 10
Get Updated: Know what’s in and what’s out in today’s fashion.
Graphic by DAVID HERNANDEZ
AHS MAINTAINS SPEED Last year, AHS students demonstrated their academic excellence and consistency by earning an API score of 859, once again bringing pride to the school and establishing it among the best. By SEAN MAROONGROGE Staff Writer Congrats, AHS, for starting the year off right. Or rather, doing well enough on last year’s California Standardized Tests (CST) to keep our rank up among schools statewide. Our Academic Performance Index (API) score for the 2007-2008 testing session was 859. Why does this seem so familiar? No, that wasn’t your latest high score on your favorite calculator game. 859 is the exact same score we had during the last reporting session. What does this mean? Well, we can look at it a couple of ways. The state goal for every school is an API of at least 800 on a scale of 200-1000, with 1000 being the best. Because we already have such a high API, the state only asks that we maintain a score over 800. We surpassed the state’s expectations by 59 points, so congratulations to us! We also scored 10 points higher than the median score (849) of 100 schools similar to us, as defined by size, faculty and demographics. Another good sign for us. However, the similar school median grew 6 points last year, so we need to keep improving to stay within the top half of these schools. But wait! There’s more. The state also breaks down improvement totals for individual subgroups. Hats off to our English learners and students with disabilities for surpassing the targets set by them. Achieving gains of 22 and 30 points respectively is no small feat, and was a welcome boon to our total API score. These numbers mostly reflect how well we performed last year on our standardized tests.
An “advanced” rating in any subject contributes 1000 points to the calculation of our API, while a “proficient” is 875 points and a “basic” is 700. The scale goes on, but needless to say, having everyone score “advanced” on every test is what we’re looking for to improve our school’s ranking. Students are encouraged to try their best on these exams, because the reported rankings are used in determining college acceptances, property values and more. That borderline B+ in AP-something-or-other is worth more if our API goes up than if we drop, so consider your options: spend a few more minutes concentrating on the CST, or be prepared to explain to your parents why your ideal college just didn’t care about your near-perfect GPA, or even perfect GPA for that matter. If you don’t believe in all of this grade-inflation business, then that’s fine. Just remember that the idea of including CST scores on our transcripts has been a perennial topic of discussion. While our score report alone seems fine and dandy, keep your eyes on Crescenta Valley High’s growth of 9 points over the last year to 870. Palos Verdes Peninsula (one of the 100 similar schools we are compared to) grew 8 points to 879. San Marino jumped 10 points up to 921. And if you find these increases alarming, consider South Pasadena High’s 15 point improvement from 842 to 857— just 2 points below us. We’re running our own race, but come on, people. We’ve been the best, but we’ve got to get better! AHS has done a good job of holding onto our 859, but we need to prepare for the future. How can we combat this trend of our competition leaving us behind? As senior Kevin Kim puts it, “the CST is more of a measure of effort than knowl-
edge. If everyone tried, our school’s API would be insane.” We’ve got the sharp minds to do it; we just need to put them to good use. On a less competitive note, the federal government uses a set of four criteria to determine whether a school has made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), as required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. 1. The API rate must be over 620, or increase by at least 1 point. As discussed above, we shattered that number with an 859 at both of our last two testing cycles. 2. The graduation rate must be at least 83%, a figure we again met. 3. For each subgroup (ethnic subgroups, English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities), a school must attain a goal of 95% participation in the CST and California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) 4. Each subgroup must also attain an adequate proficiency rate as determined by these tests. Since we had 10 subgroups with enough students to be statistically practical, we had to meet 10 goals for proficiency, 10 for participation and the overall participation and graduation requirements. We met all 22 of the criteria set for us by the federal government to be able to say we adequately improved over the last year. However, since when has “adequate” really been enough for us as Arcadians? There is no federal standard for “outstanding yearly progress,” but we can achieve it if we try, nonetheless. So pat yourselves on the back, continue to succeed, and always reach for more. smaroongroge@theapachepowwow.com