SensibleTalk.com Front Page Archive for March 2011

I'm sure you've heard the ongoing complains that the Pasadena Unified School District is "troubled" or "underperforming." Despite the fact that PUSD's state test scores have risen for the past several years, and are rising faster than the state average, critics point out that PUSD's average California API score, 758, still lags the state average of 767.

Let's take a look at what's really happening in the PUSD. Here are the district's latest average state test scores, broken down by racial, ethnic and economic group:

2010 API Growth Report
Student Category	PUSD Average	State Average
White	875	838
Hispanic or Latino	736	715
African American	712	685
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged*	724	712

(*These are students on the federal free or reduced-price school lunch program)

That's right, PUSD students outscore the state average in each of these racial, ethnic and economic groups. So how is it that PUSD's average is lower than the state average?
There's more...