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School officials are expressing delight in the state’s recent publication of the Academic Performance Index in which the majority of Berkeley schools showed improvement over last year.  

While most schools ranked just below their growth targets, they were mostly on par with similar schools. Two schools – Thousand Oaks Elementary and Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet School – were ranked four out of 10, but school officials said that could be attributed to several factors.  

“Thousand Oaks has one of the largest populations where the student’s primary language is not English,” said Terry Doran, president of the Berkeley Unified School District. “I believe they should be tested in their native language first, but we just have to deal with that. We feel these students are right on track.” 

Doran said the same holds true for Parks School which has a two-way language immersion program that he feels is superior to the program at Thousand Oaks.  

Both Doran and Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said that the API is important as a way to assess student growth, but also indicated that it is merely one indicator of how a school  

is doing.  

“Test scores are a snap shot of how [students] are on that day of the test,” McLaughlin said. “It doesn’t assess day to day progress.” 

Attendance, reading achievement, intervention for troubled students and even minute details like nutrition are important factors in student success, Doran said.  

“We’re looking beyond test scores,” he said.  

Ann Gaebler, president of the Thousand Oaks Parent Teacher Association and a parent at the school for 10 years, said the test results hold little weight for her. 

“Personally as a parent, I’m more concerned with what the teachers are doing in the classroom. ... As far as test scores go, it’s a reflection of the diverse community that goes to that school. A huge range of non-native speakers go to the school and they are not tested in their language,” she said. “I don’t think, ‘Oh my God, what kind of school am I sending my kid to?’ I know what kind of school I send my kids to, one of the best schools in Berkeley.”