Los Angeles Unified bucked the statewide decline, recording the second-highest gain in academic performance among the state’s 10 largest school systems. Among them, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino City school districts improved over last year, but the other seven slipped, reflecting a fall that officials attributed to severe budget cuts and to more demanding national learning standards being phased in.

L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said he was “pleasantly stunned” by the district’s strong performance compared with the state’s. Students struggling with English recorded the largest gains in district history, and those with disabilities and from lower-income homes also boosted their achievement with improvements that outpaced the statewide average. African American and Latino students also did better than their peers statewide.

“These are the fruits of a very focused agenda,” Deasy said. “We have continued to grow despite the absolute worst in budget cuts, and that is testament to the quality of our employees and how hard our students are working.”

DATABASE: Look up the latest API scores for schools across California

The achievement ratings, called the Academic Performance Index, are based on a 1,000-point scale and compiled from standardized test scores. They are widely viewed as a comprehensive marker of school quality, affecting property values and triggering penalties, among other effects.

A Watts charter school that took over half the campus of low-performing Jordan High School two years ago posted the highest gains in the state. Staff members at Animo College Preparatory Academy, operated by Green Dot Public Schools, credited the success to sweeping changes in school culture, organization, academic support programs, teacher selection and training and other improvements.

Animo students said the school has boosted their achievement — and academic ambition — with better teachers, stricter discipline and higher expectations. Elias Jaime, 17, said he used to be a “bad kid” with Cs and Ds but has improved his grades to A’s and Bs and is now eager to attend college — a shift he credited to teachers who “never give up on you.”

“We’re very proud of the school and the area,” said Yaqueline Parra, a 16-year-old senior. “People always talk about how we’re the worst kids who live in a ghetto, but now look at us.”

Animo Principal Veronica Coleman, however, did not feature the school’s 110-point gain on her office white board. Instead, she wrote down 638 — the school’s performance score, which reflects the fact that more than half its students are below grade level in English and math. The state goal is 800.

“I need to remember we still have so far to go,” Coleman said. “Our kids are still not prepared for college.”

Several schools operated by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a nonprofit launched by former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, also showed significant improvement. Mendez Learning Center and several schools on the Roosevelt High campus recorded gains of more than 50 points, some of the largest in the state. Roosevelt High School Magnet surpassed the state’s 800-point benchmark for the first time.

Joan Sullivan, the partnership’s chief executive, attributed the improvements to its focus on recruiting and training strong principals and teachers, using technology to address individual student needs and increasing parent involvement and education.

“We’ve built really strong momentum,” Sullivan said.

Deasy noted that the district’s most-improved schools were those that were targeted for intensive support or freed to be more innovative. Overall, traditional campuses did not keep pace with the district’s improvement in scores, he said. L.A. Unified’s performance rating rose 3 points to 749.

Statewide, the performance rating fell 2 points to 789. But the percentage of schools that met the state goal has more than doubled in the last decade, to 51% this year from 21% in 2003.

Those gains have come despite $20 billion in state budget cuts that prompted the loss of 30,000 teachers, a shorter school year, larger classes and cutbacks in summer classes, after-school programs and other offerings that educators say help boost achievement.

In other test results released Thursday, 95.5% of California students in the class of 2013 passed the high school exit exam, the highest rate since it was made a graduation requirement in 1999.

“Despite the very real challenges of deep budget cuts and the ongoing effort to shift to new, more demanding academic standards, our schools persevered and students made progress,” State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a statement.

By: Teresa Watanabe

Photo: Animo College Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Watts, posted the highest gains in academic performance in the state. Above, 10th-grader Jasmine Payne attends class. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / August 28, 2013)