Pace of Education Improvement Held Steady in 2003 in Nine-County Region, New Bay Area Council Study Finds

Business Wire,  Feb 26, 2004  

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About the Bay Area Education Performance Profile

The Bay Area Council and GreatSchools developed the Bay Area Education Performance Profile to assist parents, educators, public officials, employers and civic groups in tracking education performance in the Bay Area, as well as to measure the impact of new public policy and programs designed to improve education performance. The Bay Area Council compiles the survey annually.

Data and Methodology

All data used in this report are provided by the California Department of Education. The first section of the report contains information about all school districts in the state, Bay Area and the nine counties. The second section shows comparisons by county, with results reported for all school districts. In addition, comparison data by district, with results reported for all schools is available at http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/standard/bac1.cgi or on both the Bay Area Council and GreatSchools.net Websites. The education indicators reported in each of these sections are: (1) Academic Performance Index (API) results; (2) California Standards Test (CST) performance; (3) SAT results; and (4) A-G requirements met.

Achievement on state and national tests are the basis of the API, the most widely used measure of school performance in California. In the elementary grades, the API includes results from the national norm-referenced California Achievement Test, Sixth Edition Survey (CAT/6), and the CSTs, which measure achievement against the state's content standards. In addition to these tests, for high schools, the API also includes results from the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).

Bay Area Council

The Bay Area Council is a business-sponsored, CEO-led, public policy organization founded in 1945 to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in the region. It represents major employers in the region and mobilizes business leadership to address issues related to the regional economy, including education and workforce preparation. The work of the Bay Area Council on education performance metrics was originally supported in part by a grant from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The fifth edition of the Bay Area Education Performance Profile is supported in part by a grant from the Stupski Family Fund, a Donor Advised Fund of The San Francisco Foundation. More information: www.bayareacouncil.org.

GreatSchools.net

GreatSchools.net is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide parents with the information they need to choose schools, support their children's education, and improve schools in their communities. GreatSchools.net provides and maintains an online guide to K-12 schools across the country at www.greatschools.net.

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