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Failing schools list is final

Posted in Turning around failing schools

The list is in and final. After a four-hour hearing on Thursday, the State Board of Education unanimously approved the revised list of 188 failing schools (see here, here and here)  that the Department of Education staff proposed. But not before a line of superintendents and others criticized the process, timing and content of the lists.

The schools on the list are supposed to comprise the 5 percent of “persistently lowest performing schools” in need of drastic intervention. They’ll be eligible to apply for federal School Improvement Grants of between $150,000 and $6 million over the next three years.

On Wednesday, education officials replaced 37 middle and high schools with schools that more deserve to be on the list, based on test scores. Many of the superintendents at the meeting had schools on the original list; while relieved to have them removed, they were unhappy to have been on it in the first place. Others expressed frustration that they learned theirs would be added to the list only the day before.

This was the inaugural list, and the state can learn from the experience. Two conclusions:

  • Even after the revision, there were flaws in the selection criteria; while all 188 schools are low achievers, at least several dozen probably don’t belong among the truly lowest 5 percent;
  • It’s not apparent what schools must achieve to exit from the list; the law doesn’t specify, and the state board offered no suggestions on Thursday.

By John Fensterwald on March 12th, 2010

Comments on Failing schools list is final

"It’s not apparent what schools must achieve to exit from the list; the law doesn’t specify, and the state board offered no suggestions on Thursday." Are we surprised the the focus is still on the problem and not the solution. Parents today have a difficult time trying to find the right school for their kids. Take it from me too many parents are afraid to speak out against the lack of accountability for the administrators at our schools who either blame the teacher or the district and lack of funding. Teachers need to refocus on providing better "Customer Service" to our children. Administrators need to provid better answers and support to the parents. If a parent voices their concerns about things like "Bullying" they become the problem parent and their child needs counseling help... There are so many underlying issues and no one is coming up with the solutions... Budget cuts in our schools should not be considered an option when it comes to our children's eduction. They should look at the "Top Heavy" overhead cost of an over paid Administrator who has an assistant and the assistant's assistant.
- Virginia
Thanks, Doug.
- Gary Ravani
Gary: Well, I don't know about the larger EL civil rights issues and/or the larger fiscal issues, or whether the "persistently low-achieving schools" issue is at all related to those larger issues. But I can say that the lack of transparency for narrower K-12 assessment and accountability issues has increased in recent years. When CA's academic content standards were debated in the late 90's, the STAR/CAHSEE assessments were designed in the very late 90's and early 00's, and the API created in the early 00's, critical methodology issues were debated in open SBE sessions that featured national experts as advisors as well as a number of open advisory bodies. The last major advisory group with members named by a cross-section of CA leaders was the AB 312 NCLB Advisory Team that vetted changes for CA's STAR, CAHSEE, and API systems to comply with NCLB in open sessions 2002-2004. Since 2005, most assessment and accountability issues have come to the SBE as CDE staff recommendations without independent public vetting (i.e., no transparency) such as the methodology for identification of persistently low-achieving schools. The overall quality of CA's K-12 assessment and accountability systems, and major policy uses for data from those systems, would improve with a return to the transparency of greater vetting by advisory groups, LEA input in open sessions, and involvement of interested/informed members of the public as was the case in the late 90's and early 00's. Doug McRae, Retired Test Publisher, Monterey, CA
- Doug McRae
Doug: I have seen you often at SBE meetings. I don't always agree with your positions, but I respect the thought you put into your assertions. I would be interested in reading more of your thoughts on the lack of transparency and apparent capriciuosness of the SBE/CDE's actions on the creation of the lists. It is no mere coincidence that within the last couple of days the feds have launched an investigation into the civil rights issues around CA's (actually LAUSD) treatment of EL students. At the same time the USDE is withholding funds from CA until the Governor explains his budgetary slight of hand in funding education. The fiscal chickens are coming home to roost. CA has not been "adequately" (in the legal sense)been funding education since the 1980s. None of CA's students are having their legitimate, constitutional, right to an education honored. This is not about "persistently low achieving schools" as much as it is about a persistently low achieving state.
- Gary Ravani
You are spot-on, Doug, and I should have mentioned in the post that there was no excuse for the state not to have released a preliminary list weeks before the State Board voted. Then knowledgeable individuals like yourself could have pointed out the flaws in the methodology -- not of the CDE's making, by the way -- and avoided the problems that eventually were only partially fixed. CDE was more worried about the public relations and personnel issues facing districts than in informing the public. And, in the end, the delays only made it worse for districts and superintendents.
- John Fensterwald
The CA legislative criteria to generate the "low-achieving schools" list and federal guidelines were known to Sacto authorities in January, yet a "preliminary" list was not released until less than 72 hours before the State Board was to act on the list, and a "revised preliminary" list was released less than 24 hours before action. With a total lack of transparency, CDE staff (along with apparently two SBE members) made fine tuning decisions behind closed doors with no vetting by advisory committees or LEAs or the public. This process was stunningly irresponsible. The SBE used a duplitious CYA rationale not to consider changes in the CDE staff proposed methodology and its resulting list by saying that they didn't want to further upset the LEAs with more last minute action to get a better list -- i.e., they didn't do their homework on this issue so lets go ahead with an imperfect mediocre result. While heavily criticising the CDE, SPI, and SBE for their "Far Below Basic" action on the "low-achieving schools" list, I need to balance that criticism by commending the State Board (and particularly its President Ted Mitchell) for taking courageous action by assigning trustees to two Monterey Co school districts whose student academic progress has been severely impeded by adult conflicts at the local school board and district leadership levels. Only once before has the SBE initiated a trustee being assigned to a local district (Coachella Valley in 2008) for solely academic deficiencies yet the SBE acting without recommendation from the SPI or CDE staff took this courageous action. They deserve commendation for putting kids interests over adult failings. Given the Jeckle and Hyde nature of yesterday's proceedings at the SBE in Sacto, and the more widespread statewide damage done by the faulty "low-achieving schools" methodology and resulting list, perhaps the feds should consider assigning a trustee to oversee the actions of the CDE, SPI, and SBE for its administration of federal education reform programs in California . . . . . Doug McRae, Retired Test Publisher, Monterey, CA
- Doug McRae
 
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The Educated Guess is a forum on education policies in California and Silicon Valley. It is funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and sponsored by the Silicon Valley E
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About John
John Fensterwald is a journalist at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation,
which he joined in September 2009. For 11 years before that, he wrote editorials at the Mercury News in San Jose, with a focus on education.
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