11:16 AM PDT, October 17, 2002 

                   UPDATE
                   Schools Show Gains in Performance Scores
                   From Associated Press 
                   SACRAMENTO -- Nearly 70 percent of California schools scored higher
                   on the Academic Performance Index this year, though the gains were not as
                   dramatic as in previous years, state education officials announced today.
 

                   Elementary schools showed the most progress, with middle and high
                   schools lagging behind. Sixty percent of the state's elementary schools hit
                   their targets of a 5 percent increase over the school's 2001 API score. Only
                   39 percent of middle schools and 29 percent of high schools hit their
                   targets.
 

                    The 2002 scores  reveal that only 20 percent of the schools measured hit
                    the statewide target of 800 set by Gov. Gray Davis three years ago,
                    when he called for higher expectations and accountability in
                    the state's public schools.
 
                    Sixty-nine percent of  all schools improved API scores by at least a point. However, 40
                    percent of California middle and high schools saw their scores drop or stay the same.
 

                   This marks the first year the API will be used to identify schools for potential state-imposed sanctions.
                   As part of Davis' Immediate Intervention and Underperforming Schools Program, low-performing
                   schools that failed to improve API scores two years in a row could be taken over by the state, shut
                   down or converted into a charter school.
 

                   Of the 430 schools in the first group of the program, 22 schools will face sanctions this year.
 

                   The index, a cornerstone of Davis' efforts to improve California's schools, is calculated using results
                   from the state's Standardized Testing and Reporting program. It ranges from a low of 200 to a high of
                   1000.
 

                   After a huge jump in scores during the first year of the program, education officials said they are not
                   surprised by the smaller improvements in the last two years.
 

                   "The steady and substantial gains of the last two years are more what we should expect over the long
                   haul," said California Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.
 

                   The median API score increased this year from 689 in 2001 to 705.