California’s alternative accountability system was developed following the passage of the 1999 Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA), Senate Bill 1x (Education Code Section 52052[h]), which required that by July 1, 2000, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, with the approval of the State Board of Education (SBE), “shall develop an alternative accountability system for schools under the jurisdiction of a county board of education or a county superintendent of schools, community day schools, and alternative schools, including continuation high schools and opportunity schools.”
In July 2000 the SBE approved the framework for the alternative accountability system developed by the Superintendent’s Advisory Committee for the PSAA. The conceptual model for the Alternative Schools Accountability Model (ASAM) was based on that framework. The ASAM model emphasizes three central concepts:
- Student and school performance measures should be based upon multiple indicators that assess a school’s ability to serve high-risk students. The indicators should measure change in learning readiness, engagement, and educational goal attainment as well as academic achievement and cognitive growth.
- Schools should be able to choose, from a variety of indicators, those most appropriate to their goals and student populations.
- A school’s performance should be compared not with that of other schools but rather with its own performance over time.
The ASAM provides school-level supplemental accountability for more than 1,050 alternative schools serving high-risk students, the majority of which do not receive No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) determinations or valid Academic Performance Index (API) scores, primarily because of high rates of student mobility.
Participation in the ASAM is voluntary. ASAM schools include community day schools, continuation schools, county community schools, county court schools, Division of Juvenile Justice (formerly California Youth Authority) schools, opportunity schools, and alternative schools of choice and charter schools that meet SBE criteria.
The ASAM uses 14 indicators of accountability. There are two categories of indicators: (1) indicators of school readiness, prelearning, and academic completion; and (2) indicators of academic achievement—specifically, preassessments and postassessments in reading, writing, and mathematics. ASAM schools and their school districts select three indicators that are then approved by the district superintendent and the governing board. Schools retain those indicators for at least three years.
ASAM schools report indicator data at the end of each school year. ASAM School Reports are publicly reported annually on the California Department of Education’s DataQuest Web page. ASAM has collected indicator data from school years 2001-02 through 2005-06.
