SACRAMENTO – California's accountability system is supposed to give parents and the public meaningful information about public schools. Unfortunately, the system is so confusing even the state Department of Education can't figure it out.

Each year the state recognizes high-poverty schools with Title I Academic Achievement Awards. The awards are based on schools' overall improved academic performance in English and math measured by California's Academic Performance Index (API), with scores ranging from 200 to 1,000.

Earlier this month, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced he'd have to rescind 20 percent of the Title I Academic Achievement Awards intended for high-poverty schools that demonstrated improved academic achievement. Thanks to an independent analysis by California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE), verified by the Associated Press, it turns out that a full 81 of those schools had not met state progress targets. That's more than four times as many schools as the department's initial review identified as ineligible.

There are several problems with the state's API, but chief among them is that it does not focus on improving individual student performance. The API relies on "growth targets" to measure school-wide progress. Given the way those targets are calculated, a more accurate description would be moving targets.

The API artificially inflates achievement gains by lowering schools' base API scores used to measure annual achievement growth. CBEE found that the California Department of Education lowered the base scores of more than 2,500 schools, including hundreds that actually met their school-wide growth targets.

Currently, there are no sanctions for schools that fail to meet annual growth targets, and it could take decades for them to reach the state's target of an 800 API. Worse, that score lags far below the 875 API score the state uses to measure student grade-level proficiency. But the problems don't end there.

Focusing on school achievement growth targets, California's API hides student achievement gaps because a school's API score represents an average score for of all its students on the California Standards Test (CST). Thus, a few high-scoring students could raise a school's API score even as academic achievement among low-income and minority students flatlines or even declines. Likewise, a few low-performing students in any given year could unfairly lump good schools together with poor ones.

A better approach to accountability is using the achievement of individual students as the unit of measurement, not schools' API scores. The state should have high expectations for all students and replace meaningless API growth targets with grade-level proficiency on the state standards test. Those results should be publicized in a straightforward way that parents, the public, and policy makers can actually use. In fact, the state already reports those data annually under federal No Child Left Behind reporting requirements.

High-performing schools like Los Medanos Elementary School in Pittsburg, which serves low-income and minority students, should be used as models for failing schools and to develop best practices. About half its low-income students and 42 percent of English-learner students are proficient in reading for their grade level. Yet five years ago, low-income students at Los Medanos were performing at just 15 percent of proficiency in reading and English language learners were performing at 18 percent of proficiency.

Under the current system, even when API scores rise, six out of 10 students in grades two through eleven score below grade-level proficiency in English and math on the state standards test. More than 7 out of 10 African-American and Latino students score below grade-level.

A major step toward improvement is to realize that California's API is accountability in name only. Parents need a system with transparency and consequences, one that will empower them with meaningful information about their children's schools. Legislators need to give California's parents and students the accountability system they deserve, and they need to do it sooner, rather than later.