More schools make awards list, earn smaller payouts

However, the rewards for schools that met Gov. Gray Davis' improvement targets will be smaller than originally promised.

Because so many schools qualified for the awards by boosting their Academic Performance Index rankings, qualifying schools will probably get only $68 per student, says Department of Education spokesman Doug Stone. The law creating the Governor's Performance Award said schools that met their index growth targets would get up to $150 per student.

Cimarron Elementary School in the Palmdale School District and Eastside Elementary in the Eastside School District are now eligible for monetary rewards for exceeding their growth targets.

The state on Thursday released its slightly revised performance scores, adding the 470 schools that didn't get their index ratings in October. Most of those schools were late in receiving APIs because they had to correct demographic information about their students, such as the number of students who are members of different ethnic groups or are eligible for free- and reduced-price lunches.

A total of $677 million in rewards will be distributed to schools that improved their APIs by at least 5% of the difference between their 1999 score and Davis' goal of 800. In addition, they had to meet two other requirements.

Cimarron's 1999 growth was listed as 8 percentile points last year. The school improved by 34 points in the results released in October. Eastside Elementary improved by 65 percentage points, far exceeding their growth target of 16 points.

The state Web site originally had both schools listed as ineligible for monetary rewards in October even though the growth numbers clearly demonstrated they exceeded the state's growth expectation.

API scores are the state Department of Education's school-by-school rankings. The scores are based on a school's Standardized Testing and Reporting exam scores. Each score ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000.

Davis wants all schools to hit at least 800. The Department of Education released API scores for 1999 in January and those scores were the baseline for measuring growth. Each target growth score was assigned to schools by the Department of Education and a governor's task force.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Uploaded December 8, 2000