State schools improve in math, English

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By NANETTE ASIMOV
As part of the federal government's sweeping academic experiment known as No Child Left Behind, every California school this year is supposed to have about a quarter of its students performing at grade level in math and English.

But California has fallen well short of that requirement, adding more than 600 schools this year to an expanding list of poor performers that are required to make drastic improvements.

Only 65 percent of California's 9,553 schools achieved the prescribed performance level known as "adequate yearly progress," according to figures released Thursday by state schools chief Jack O'Connell.

That's better than the year before, however, when just 62 percent of the state's schools were deemed to be doing their job.

Still, the numbers mean California has an uphill climb in reaching No Child Left Behind's final goal in 2014, when all schools _ not just in this state, but across the country _ are supposed to have every student performing at grade level in math and English.

While critics of No Child Left Behind say its expectation of 100 percent achievement is a mathematical impossibility, many educators are serious about trying to achieve the goal.

"What we have is a set of extraordinarily ambitious goals and a set of schools and educators in California that are working extraordinarily hard to meet those goals," said Jeannie Oakes, a UCLA education professor who specializes in urban schools. "But we haven't been willing to provide the extraordinary resources required to enable poor children in particular to meet those goals."

Although the new state budget allocates $8,244 per pupil, an 11.4 percent increase over last year, Oakes and others note a recent court ruling in New York City saying that it takes about $13,000 per pupil to help urban students do well in school.

Under No Child Left Behind, each of California's 9,553 schools is required to have at least 26.5 percent of students scoring at grade level on math tests taken last spring.

On the English tests, 24.4 percent of students are supposed to be at grade level.

But just 6,209 schools made it, the new report shows.

So what about the 3,344 schools that didn't?

Some of them accept no federal Title 1 money for low-income students. Therefore, they are exempt from penalties.

But 2,215 of those schools do accept Title 1 money and have failed to make adequate yearly progress two years in a row. Those factors have landed them on the Program Improvement list of underperforming schools and subject them to close scrutiny. Teachers in these schools have to undergo extra training, while students receive free tutoring. And if the students want to leave the underperforming school, the public must pay their transportation to go somewhere else.

Theoretically, schools that have been on the list for five years are subject to being taken over by the state or a private company _ and teachers and principals are vulnerable to being fired.

In reality, most schools that have been on the list for a long time simply continue trying their best to raise scores and get off the list, said Wendy Harris, California's assistant superintendent for school improvement.

State Superintendent O'Connell prefers to measure school progress by California's more forgiving Academic Performance Index. Those results were released Thursday as well. O'Connell said the state eventually will run out of resources to help all of the schools labeled as failures under No Child Left Behind, especially because more and more are expected to join the Program Improvement list as requirements become tougher each year.

In addition, O'Connell said he believes California should not spend scarce education dollars toward helping schools on the No Child Left Behind improvement list if they are improving under the state's own system.

This year, 639 schools were added to the federal Program Improvement list. Just 104 schools managed to get off the list by making adequate yearly progress two years in a row. (For a listing of these schools, go to www.sfgate.com/education).