The State Board of Education will be asked today to approve a list of 188  failing schools that is significantly different from those that the State Department of Education proposed on Monday.

Education officials have replaced 37 middle and high schools from the original list (see end of this post or this link for the revised list). Because of faulty methodology, many of those schools were higher performing that the schools that have taken their place. Whether the state has finally got it right is another matter.

The federal government has ordered the state to select 5 percent of the “persistently lowest-performing” schools that will be eligible for substantial school improvement money  in return for swallowing strong medicine. They will have to choose one of four interventions: close the school, invite in a charter, fire the principal and at least half of the staff or transform the school through a number of options, such as a longer academic day.

One would think that these schools all would come from the lowest performing 10 percent of schools – Decile 1 on the API ranking. But methodology imposed by the federal government and the Legislature caused problems. The list on Monday included several dozen Decile Three and even a few Decile Four schools. By switching criteria, most of the higher performers are no longer on the list. Two Alum Rock Union middle schools, with above 700 API scores, for example, have been dropped.

But Doug McRae, a retired Test Publisher with the textbook company McGraw-Hill, who has followed this issue closely, says there are still between 24  and 30 high Decile 2 and a half-dozen Decile 3 schools even on the revised list. The principal reason, he said, is that the Legislature in January decided to exempt any school whose API score had grown 50 points in five years — which amounted to a  pass for some of the worst performing schools. It’s much easier for a school with an API score of 450 out of 800 to grow 50 points than for a school with a 650 API. Forcing higher performing schools to restructure  is a misdirected waste of money.

McRae will propose today that the board drop the 50-point exemption — it has authority to do so — and adopt a tougher measure, letting fewer of the worst schools off the hook.

Thirty-seven new schools are among 49 “Tier 2″ schools that are listed below. Tier 2 originally consisted of middle and high schools that technically qualified for Title I anti-poverty funding, but didn’t get it because their districts chose needier schools instead.  The new Tier 2 now includes more Title I schools with lower test scores that better deserve being on the list. For a list of the remaining 139 schools, which hasn’t changed since Monday, click here.

By John Fensterwald on March 10th, 2010