On Monday we began an investigation of performance by students in SVUSD, and our first look was at API scores in schools in Lake Forest and surrounding cities/areas. Today we’ll focus on scores by District.
THE DISTRICTS
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Four school districts serve the people in South Orange County. They are-
Capistrano – 53,000 students in 55 campuses serving the cities of San Clemente, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita, and the communities of Las Flores, Coto de Caza, Dove Canyon, Ladera Ranch, and Wagon Wheel.
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SVUSD – 35,000 students in 34 campuses serving Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, and Mission Viejo.
Irvine – 30,000 students in 33 campuses serving Irvine
Laguna Beach – 3,000 students In 4 campuses serving Laguna Beach
COMPARING TWO DISTRICTS ON RANKED SCORES
Occasionally a single city is served by 2 different schools districts, and when this happens we can compare the ranks (based on API scores) for schools administered by SVUSD and the Capistrano USD. In each case, even though the city is the same, SVUSD schools achieve lower average ranks than Capistrano USD. In this analysis, a rank of 10 is the highest possible, meaning a school is in the top 10% of other schools.
RSM
Capistrano – 9.75 (4 schools/ 3 ranked 10)
SVUSD – 8.75 (4 schools/ 1 ranked 10)
Mission Viejo
Capistrano – 8.0 (9 schools/ 3 ranked 10)
SVUSD – 7.42 (12 schools/ 0 ranked 10)
In these two cities, that are served by two different school districts, the schools controlled by Capistrano USD do better than the schools under SVUSD. The average rank scores are not so different, but notice that across the 2 cities Capistrano USD achieves 6 of 13 schools with a top rank of 10, while SVUSD achieves only 1 top ranking despite having 16 schools. IOW, using the same city for comparisons, Capistrano USD has 46% of their schools with top ranks while SVUSD has only 6%.
API SCORES BY SCHOOL DISTRICT
Data is available for the school districts. Here are the average API scores for 2013 and 2012 by school district. The number in parentheses is 2012 –
Irvine – 924 (926)
Laguna Beach – 918 (923)
Capistrano – 874 (883)
SVUSD – 867 (871)
For both years, SVUSD had the lowest average scores among the four districts.
SUMMARY
On average, SVUSD has lower average API scores when compared to the 3 other school districts serving South Orange County. We’re dealing with a set of scores that range from 200 to 1,000, so the average score of 867 for SVUSD in 2013 is pretty good if you are looking at the bottom of the range. But last is last, and there is quite a difference between the 867 score for SVUSD and the 900+ scores for Laguna Beach and Irvine.
What is most revealing is that when we have the same city served by two different school districts, in each case the students served by SVUSD do worse.
On Friday we’ll go beyond the API scores and look at other factors that go into evaluating school performance.
