The Palo Alto School District will incorporate districtwide assessment statistics revealed Tuesday night into its efforts to meet academic achievement goals for 2012.
With Gunn High School ranking first in the state in SAT scores for 2008 and Paly ranking fourth, PAUSD is the number one school district by SAT scores in California.
Dr. William Garrison, director of assessment and evaluation for the school district, presented the findings, including results of AP tests, California Subject Tests and the California High School Exit Exam, and related them to PAUSD academic achievement goals for Gunn and Paly.
The first goal states that by 2012, the percentage of graduates meeting the UC/CSU a-g course requirements will be 85 percent or better. A-g course requirements refer to a set of high school courses, itemized by department, that are recommended for entry into the UC/CSU system. The full policy can be viewed here.
In 2008, 79 percent of Gunn students and 70 percent of Paly students fulfilled a-g requirements. In 2009, 75 percent of Gunn students and 76 percent of Paly students did so. Although Gunn’s percentage dropped, the total percentage of students who fulfilled course requirements increased from 75 to 76 percent.
The majority of missing credits is in the departments of English, where four years of credit are required, and math, where three years are required and four are recommended.
The second goal pledges to increase by at least 50 percent the percentage of graduating underrepresented minority students who meet a-g requirements.
The reported data, currently at 43 percent for African American students and 34 percent for Hispanic students, has dropped by an average of 4 percent since 2008 because “as of 2009, the California student data system no longer accepts the designations of ‘multiple ethnicity’ or ‘declined to state,'” Garrison said.
School board member Camille Townsend asked for clarification on how this change came about. Garrison said that students who had self-identified as multiracial or declined to state their ethnicity comprised approximately three to four percent of the students in the database. These students have since been sorted into defined ethnic categories.
“Where the choice [of ethnicity] is not made, we make the choice,” he said. “And in this case, I believe that we go with the ethnicity of the father.” He emphasized that ethnicity data is collected for purposes of state funding.
Some controversy arose around the issue of AP testing. School board member Townsend expressed concern that students with lower district achievement percentiles, which correspond to much higher percentiles nationally, are not encouraged to take AP courses in which they may be able to succeed.
In response, Garrison related an anecdote about a Paly graduate.
“He said he didn’t realize how smart he was until he got to Davis,” Garrison said. “His classes were easier for him than for most of his classmates.”
Combined Gunn and Paly SAT scores increased from a composite score of 1917 in 2008 to 1920 in 2009. These average scores are significantly higher than both the California average of 1511 and the national average of 1509.
With regard to the National Merit Scholarship competition, a total of 208 seniors at Paly and Gunn were commended or granted semifinalist status, representing 23 percent of the present senior class.
“These are fantastic numbers,” Garrison said. “23 percent of the senior class; that’s phenomenal.”
Garrison expressed hope for the achievement of district goals.
“These numbers are good,” he said. “We’re moving in the right direction.”
The full report may be viewed here, but it does not reflect several data corrections made verbally at Tuesday’s school board meeting.