General Information
The California Academy of Mathematics and Science (CAMS) opened on the California State University at Dominquez Hills (CSUDH) campus in 1990, the product of partnerships among CSUDH, the California State University’s Chancellor’s Office, a consortium of eleven local school districts, and high tech and aerospace industries. Long Beach Unified School District serves as the managing school district fiscal agent. Today CAMS ranks in the top ten schools in California on the NCLB Academic Performance Index; its students score well above state and national averages on the math and verbal SATs. Average student daily attendance in 2003-04 was 98%. Attrition is less than 5% for all reasons, as opposed to a 50% drop-out rate in some local high schools, and 95% of CAMS students go on to four-year colleges and universities, including the most selective and prestigious in the nation. (Approximately 5% attend community colleges.)
Entrance to the school is by application. CAMS faculty and students canvass all area middle schools, talk to students and parents, and invite qualified candidates and families to the school for Saturday interviews. Applicants must have scored above the 65th percentile in math and science, although English scores may be lower. Successful applicants have shown a keen interest in math and science, as evidenced in teacher recommendations and student projects.
Although CAMS winnows about 165 students from approximately 850 9th grade applicants each year, CAMS does not rank its applicants for acceptance, but accepts students from each of its 75 feeder schools including predominately inner-city middle schools. Its mission is to “defy the odds” and prove that students, especially those from academically deprived environments, can excel in math and science, given a setting that features integrated curriculum, teamwork, and real world applications of learning. Faculty refer to CAMS as a “talent development program.”
Class size is relatively large, between 30-40 students. The school receives about $5,500 per student annually, placing CAMS is on par with the state average for high schools. (CAMS’s base funding is $4,400 per student; private donations and special legislative funding make up the rest.)
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