California Abandons School Accountability Program To Acclimate To Common Core Tests.

The AP (3/13, Armario) reports that the California Board of Education voted this week to give “schools at least one year to breathe easy before they are held accountable for results on new tests aligned to the Common Core standards.” The board suspended the state’s Academic Performance Index accountability system for the current school year “to give teachers and students time to adjust to standardized tests aligned with the Common Core standards.”

        Reuters (3/13, Bernstein) reports that the move is an effort to satisfy both standardized testing critics and those who call for greater school accountability. The piece quotes Superintendent Tom Torlakson saying, “This will give us a complete picture rather than a narrow view.”

        The Monterey County (CA) Herald (3/11) reports that this is the second year running that “California officials have suspended the Academic Performance Index, the score used to measure academic progress at schools and districts throughout the state,” noting that the move “signals the end of API, as officials are also preparing a new system.”

        EdSource Today (3/13, Fensterwald) reports that the state board intends to replace the API with “a new system in which test scores would be just one of many measures of student achievement and school performance.”