In a teleconference with reporters on the release of the latest round of API and AYP scores, state schools chief Jack O’Connell said now is the time to consider upping the state’s goal from a target of 800 to something beyond. How much beyond, he wouldn’t say.

Now is the time for “thoughtful and open discussion with our educational community…as to whether we should raise the API score past the 800 target,” he said.

O’Connell acknowledged the recent budget cuts, but pointed to California’s adoption of a national common core curriculum as a good reason to begin the discussion. He called it a window of opportunity.

“I will not allow under my watch any excuses such as funding” to shortchange what we are trying to do for our students, O’Connell said.

“I think it’s premature to try to speculate how high we would go,” he said in response to a reporter’s question of how much beyond 800 he is talking about.

But Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Sharon Liddell said the most recent budget woes have forced many districts to cut back the very programs that are making the recent, steady (although not as strong as the state’s growth) possible.

“We are going to have to start dismantling some of the very best programs that are helping kids,” she said.

She also called for a real discussion over how to give weight to the test so students actually take the results seriously. As it is now, students get no reward or penalty for however they score on the exam, she said.

“We need to make it important to them,” she said, adding that officials can’t learn much from data that means nothing to students.

“People say, in more places than one, that if the (California Standardized Tests) were tied to something that is important to students and their families — right now it’s just a number. They can pass the (high school exit exam) and be far below basic in the other and it just doesn’t faze them.”

Rhonda Bellmer, superintendent and principal of West Side Elementary where students recorded an 821 this year, credited Sonoma County schools for making great strides in the more than a decade that the test results have been tracked, but said to push the goal higher now would be premature.

“If we are moving in the right direction, can’t we enjoy some success?” she said.

 “We’ve gone from 23 percent to 48 percent (reaching 800) in Sonoma County. That’s good, it’s good news,” she said. “In my mind, it doesn’t mean you have to keep increasing. Let’s get everyone there.”