API MADNESS IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL, BACK TO TESTING.

Byline: SPIKE DOLOMITE WARD Local View

IT'S that time of year again. The API scores have been released to the public, just in time for kids to go back to school. Anxiety, competition, fear and pride are felt by parents all over the city.

But hold on, Mom and Dad! The Academic Performance Index scores tell us only one thing: where the whitest, most affluent neighborhoods are.

I never got caught up in the API craze as a parent, but I do keep track of all of the API scores in the San Fernando Valley for my work. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that schools in the poorer neighborhoods with immigrant children can't compete with schools in the West Valley. And they never will.

My son entered kindergarten in 1999 in a low-income area with a high immigrant population. He and his peers have been on the front lines of the API wars and the No Child Left Behind Act since their inception. As a parent, I have witnessed firsthand how devastating this system of ranking schools, pressuring young children and segregating students based upon their race, financial status, and learning ability has on education and individuals.

As an active parent at my son's school, I was around a lot, so I knew that my son was attending a really good school (in Reseda!). I could see with my own eyes that my son was in very capable hands. His teachers really cared about him. I knew that he was learning, even though he wasn't ``proficient.'' (A 7-year-old boy ``proficient''? Come on!) He had talented, caring teachers who understood that he traveled to the beat of his own drum. (He's a quirky, artsy person, as am I. Popular belief would label us both as ``ADD,'' an ironic epidemic in this post-feminist, anti-democratic, conformist era of public education.)

Thankfully, his early teachers never tried to cram the uniform drum into his hands and force him to play. As a nonconformist myself, I valued that more than anything else about his school.

Year after year, I could see that due to the NCLB and the API wars, the uniform drum was being beaten at the same tempo on the same day throughout the entire LAUSD. Teachers were being forced to teach by script, no longer by experience, care and instinct. People began to mistrust one another. Schools became more committed to their API scores instead of their students.

Now school is starting up again, and the API scores are the buzz. But think about it: What do these scores really mean?

Your child's school may have a good score, but can your child really think? Does your child have the ability to take risks? Is your child an individual? Can your child really apply what they have learned in preparation for these tests in any meaningful way, or are do they just have strong short-term memory skills?

Instead of getting worked up about your school's API scores and your child's individual score, ask yourself these questions: Does your school have an arts program? Does it offer music? Does it read fiction for the joy of reading or is it only Open Court?

Is your kid burned out at the age of 8? Do students in your school learn anything for the sake of learning, or is everything measured and tested? Do they go on field trips? Does the school value anything that won't be on the spring test?

Does your child's teacher give you their own professional opinion regarding your child, or do they only report to you what the test scores say? Is there strong parent and community support for the school? Are the kids curious or are they unusually compliant? Do any of the kids move to the beat of their own drum, or is everybody walking in one straight line, all marching to the same beat?

There are several school communities in the Valley that do value all of the above. You'd never know it by their APIs. They abide by district rules because they have to, but they have found creative alternatives to better educate their students.

Their kids aren't stressed out.

Standardized testing has eliminated creativity in education. The tests drive the curriculum. This is having a profound effect on the children that these schools are supposed to serve.

From the looks of things today, students are being prepared for future military service, not a healthy, competitive local and global economy. The next great American innovators, designers and leaders are going to have to be creative individuals who know how to think.

America has become quite arrogant and complacent in our status of King of the World. While we are kicking back, drinking our lattes, confident in our superior status, the rest of the world is working overtime to catch up.

These are the things that we should be concerned about, not who has the highest API score.

For America to stay on top, the next generation is going to have to think creatively. There is much talk right now about public education reform. The system needs to be changed, but it can't be done from within. The system is too invested in itself. Change must come from the outside.

This is where Mom and Dad come in. < Parents don't realize how critical they are to reform. We are the key to true change and equity in public education.

Let go of the belief that API scores are relevant. Challenge the No Child Left Behind Act. Support neighborhood school communities. Abandon the race and support creativity in our schools.