California Continuation Education Association Document

Title:  Letter to the Alternative API Committee

Author:  Janet Knoeppel

Date:  February 16, 2000

February 16, 2000

Dear Dr. Barber and Mrs. Wilen:

Following the meeting of January 7, 2000 held at the Department of Education, the Executive Board of the California Continuation Education Association (CCEA) met to discuss our concerns regarding the alternative API. We conducted a survey through our website to help us clarify our position. A representative sample indicated the following results:

• Students who are measured need to have been enrolled in our schools for a minimum of one year.
• Comparative individual student growth from one year to the next needs to be the focus of measurement.
• Graduation rates, attendance rates and improvement in the performance of basic skills need to be examined.

Based on this we wish to emphasize the following:

Any measurement of our schools should be based on the legislative intent that we are the primary dropout prevention program for the state. In that role, we should be measuring growth, and or change in, academic performance, attendance rates and successful completion of high school. The students with whom we have had the greatest success are our seniors who are not currently being measured. Because of the nature of our schools, utilizing the current API model would be measuring the performance of our feeder schools. It is our desire that the alternative API accurately measure the performance of our schools.

We appreciate your consideration of our input as you move forward in the development of the alternative API. In addition, we look forward to a continuing relationship with this committee in the development of the alternative API.

Sincerely,

Janet Knoeppel
State President