October 12, 2012: As reported in today's EdSource by Kathryn Baron and John Fensterwald, "a record seven out of 10 California schools receiving federal Title 1 aid now fall under sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Law."
...Parents wouldn?t know that from looking at the?School Quality Snapshot, a snazzy two-page graphic summary of every school?s performance that the Department of Education released yesterday. It includes standardized test results, API scores, records on student suspensions and expulsions, even physical fitness test results (go here to search for?your favorite school?s report). [NB: where it says "Enter part of school name," enter only the city name; e.g., Eureka, not Eureka High -- program glitch.] What?s not included is whether the school is in Program Improvement, the formal name for the much disliked NCLB penalties.
Torlakson?made it clear the state is downplaying Program Improvement while it waits to hear from the U.S. Department of Education on whether the state?s request for a waiver from NCLB has been approved.?
?California?s request for a waiver from the requirements of NCLB is still pending,? Torlakson said in a press release. ?While we?re waiting for the flexibility we need, we?re not going to allow a flawed system to distract us from the work we?re doing to help schools improve.?
As Sharon Noguchi wrote in the San Jose Mercury News:
...?Even while more schools are meeting state targets, more of them are missing federal ones. That's because the state measures year-to-year improvement in achievement, while the federal system looks only at proficiency, or how many children are at or above grade level. And its demands for the proportion of students expected to meet that benchmark rise steeply every year. For 2011-12, about 78 percent of students had to test proficient in math and English.
By the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, only 26 percent of California schools met federal targets. That's a drop from 35 percent last year, largely because that target was raised by 11 percentage points last year.
Baron explains: ...Passed by Congress a decade ago, NCLB requires 100 percent proficiency by 2014, for every subgroup of students in every school, including students with disabilities, English learners, low-income students, and significant racial and ethnic groups. The bar has been raised every year; for the current year, between 78 and 80 percent of students must be proficient on CSTs in math and English language arts. Only 26 percent of all 9,905 schools and 18 percent of Title I schools made those targets. Most of those were wealthier schools with fewer subgroups.
?As the Annual Measurable Objectives (yearly targets) got higher and higher,? said [WestEd's director of Assessment & Standards Development Services Stanley] Rabinowitz,??the system was rigged against diverse schools and large schools, and California has a lot of those. Moving forward we need to think about what?s the next generation of accountability systems that are fairer and more appropriate for the conditions we?re dealing with.?...
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