Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Assessment Results topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
SFUSD reports multi‑year gains on CST and API but highlights persistent gaps and math concerns
Summary
District staff presented CST, API and other assessments showing multi-year gains (ELA and math), a district API of 796, improvements for some subgroups and steady suspension declines. Board members pressed for clarity on rising CMA usage, algebra access and strategies to close achievement gaps for African American and Latino students.
District staff presented a multi-measure review of the previous school year’s academic results, including California Standards Test (CST) trends, Academic Performance Index (API) growth, algebra access and subgroup outcomes.
Dr. Ritu Khanna said English language arts proficiency rose over the past five years from roughly 47.5% to 57.4% and that districtwide math shows gains but a flattening in recent years. She reported the district API at 796 (four points short of the state's 800 target) and noted the state’s federal AYP target remains challenging; the district reached roughly 58.8% for the AYP ELA threshold cited in the presentation. The presentation included participation and subgroup breakdowns (for example, reported African American proficiency rates that are substantially below district averages) and a districtwide CST testing population count cited in the presentation (37,666 students tested in ELA).
Board members and staff discussed the sharp increase in students taking the California Modified Assessment (CMA) among special-education populations and the implications for comparability with CST scores. Deputy and associate superintendents explained CMA eligibility rules (e.g., students with previous below-basic CST performance or who meet specific IEP criteria) and acknowledged the district needs to move more special-education students into general-curriculum access when appropriate.
Math was a recurrent focus: the district reported increased eighth-grade algebra enrollment but concerns about proficiency gaps across subgroups, prompting staff to describe a district math improvement initiative, new instructional guides aligned to the Common Core, and an algebraic-thinking professional-development rollout at a set of middle schools. Staff also noted a $3,000,000 grant (three years) to support Common Core work and math professional development.
Board members requested more disaggregated data (e.g., algebra proficiency by race) and a report on the ethnicity of students not tested, to inform targeted interventions.
