California Academic Performance Index

The Academic Performance Index (API) is the cornerstone of California's Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 (PSAA). API measures the academic performance and growth of schools. It is a numeric index (or scale) that ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000. A school's score on the API is an indicator of a school's performance level. The statewide API performance target for all schools is 800. A school's growth is measured by how well it is moving toward or past that goal. A school's API Base is subtracted from its API Growth to determine how much the school improved in a year