Randy wrote on Sep 9, 2007 6:26 AM:If you fail to teach for 60 years, your expectations are set so low that almost any change can be characterized as an improvement!

Good but not enough wrote on Sep 9, 2007 7:04 AM:Get rid of the spanish and the scores will rise.

WAY to GO! wrote on Sep 9, 2007 7:51 AM:Congratutlations, VUSD, you are heading in the right direction. And, I think its wonderful that your board leaders are acknowledging and complimenting the teachers, when they are normally insulting you!

Vista Teacher wrote on Sep 9, 2007 10:09 AM:Carol, you hit the nail on the head! "The worst program in the world in the hands of the best teacher, still works (while) The best program in the world, in the hands of the worst teacher, doesn't work." I've been saying this for years now, but our Union continues to protect those "worst teachers" from being removed from our District. Although you now paraphrase that which I've been saying for so long, I and many others are still waiting for you and the rest of the Board to act on those words. It is time to work on improving the quality of the teaching in VUSD by ensuring high quality teachers to aid in implementing the new programs that seem to be working so well. Only through the combined efforts of ALL teachers, Administrators, and the Board can we expect to provide the quality education our students deserve.

PPB wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:20 AM:Why was Bobier not mentioned for its 38 point gain? Could it be that Bales made a huge mistake in firing the principal? Could it be that the 28 students who were pulled out of core instruction for Lindamood Bell ALL dropped on thier test scores? Could it be that the 3 years of concerted effort by hard working teachers in fully implementing the STATE BOARD APRROVED program, Houghton Mifflin, is the main reason for thier success? How dare Bales, Guffanti and Lilly take all the credit!

Bigger View wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:23 AM:Vista Teacher: Yes, it would be great if VUSD could work to improve teacher quality, but the power of the union at the state level (California Teachers Association) keeps real change from happening. VUSD and other districts can do only so much. CTA makes it so hard to discipline or remove a bad teacher that most districts aren't willing to spend the time or money to try. Carol, Steve, and David are doing their best to support good teachers and help struggling teachers, but they can't do it alone. Good teachers should push CTA to toughen up on bad teachers. The bad ones tarnish the image of the good ones.

Well, Duh!!! wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:27 AM:""When we put our focus on teaching kids English, that made the difference," Brown said." -- Well duh, it don't take no rocket scientist to realize that! All our Colleges and Universities teach in English, and foreign students have to take and pass the TOFEL (a test of English proficiency) to get into our Colleges and Universities. So, whoever it was that thought teaching students in K-12 using the kids' native language obviously just wanted to ensure the kids never got farther in their education then high school (if that). Without the command of the English language most students will not even fish primary school before they feel like an outcast. This leads them to join with others that are similarly ostracized by their community and form gangs. Since most of these individuals (though very intelligent) have no salable skills or lack the social skills needed to function within the legitimate society, these gangs revert to illegal activities to support their operations. ... The obvious intellect is there, but their early rejections from society while attending public schools is what has driven them to this life of crime. It all starts with schools failing to teach English, Reading, and Math. So, it is about time VUSD start realizing the importance of teaching the Basics! Now, if only we can keep them on this road of recovery and stop all the squabbling about a new super and the changes she is making in her top administration. ...

Vista Teacher wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:46 AM:I need say no more then, "The Olive Eight." Look at who supported them and who didn't, then you will know who is for removing the low performers and who is for protecting them. Yes, poor performers tarnish the reputations of those of us who have been working so hard for so long against an organization run by people who put their own personal gains above the needs of the students and community they serve. What I find of interest in your comment is the reference to David and Steve, along with Carol. ... Why do you segregate the trio from the Board? We all know only too well Dr. Guffanti and Mr. Gibson have been stressing teacher performance for a long time, only to have the trio continually side with the Union who have protected the poor performers. Yes, the CTA is a part of the problem, but there are ways to work around the CTA, including becoming a Charter District. No one in CA has yet fully investigated that option, but it is a way to remove the strangle hold placed on our administrators preventing us from promoting the quality teachers while letting the under achievers move on to other professions. ... We need to elect new leadership in the VTA and ensure that our Local aids in improving the not only the quality of education at VUSD, but also the image of the professionals doing the work. This can only be done by removing the poor performers (remember, poor performance is measured not only by the successes in the classroom, but also on the level of effort placed on self-improvement. Poor performers simply use their connections - the Union - to do as little as needed to get by. We see that in some of our students: the "skaters." We won�t tolerate that in our classrooms, so why tolerate that in our teachers?).

Samuel to PPB wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:52 AM:Please furnish the particulars on the Houghton Mifflin program. I have been attending the Board meetings and following the media coverage of the District and don’t recall hearing anything about it. What is it? How does it work? When did the District start using it and in which schools? Where are the progress reports on the program? Unless these basic questions are answered we can’t evaluate its success. If I were a teacher I would take offense at Trustee Herrera’s comment. It seems like she is saying that the poor test results in the past prove that there are very few “best” teachers in the District. I believe the problem has been the lack of leadership. We now have it and it sounds like we have some motivated teachers and principals in place.

PPB to Samuel wrote on Sep 9, 2007 12:15 PM:California has two Board approved reading programs, Houghton Mifflin and Open Court. Vista decided after piloting these programs to go with HM. This was about 3-4 years ago. At the same time, Vista applied for and received a federal grant, Reading First. This grant is exactly that, a funding source, not a program. It has funded over the last 3 years teacher and admin professional development, monthly teacher collaboration to look at assessment and drive instruction around that, materials, and a reading coach at the sites. The first group of children that started with this just reached 2nd grade last year and took the tests. Teachers have worked very hard to implement this and are now seeing the results of this hard work. Nothing can change scores this drastically in one years time! Sadly, the leaders who were behind the implementation of HM as well as adding Lindamood Bell as an intensive intervention have all been fired or taken jobs somehwere else. They are the ones who should be getting the recognition for the improvements not Bales. Vista should continue to see growth and gains as long as the teachers are allowed to implement HM and use Lindamood Bell as an intervention OUTSIDE of the core instruction time.

Taxpayer wrote on Sep 9, 2007 12:26 PM:It’s strange to hear Carol Herrera comment on reform. In her last campaign for re-election she said all the schools were wonderful and there was no need for change. She receives all her money from the Union which has opposed the reading program and ANY type of reform at VUSD. Now her and her Union friends want to take credit for the positive changes at the district when she has been one of the biggest nay-sayers and road blocks to any type of change that does not directly benefit the Union. She is the biggest supporter of the failed bilingual program and the biggest critic of mainstreaming Spanish speakers. Carol and her Union friends were in control of this district for the last 15 years as it success slowly disintegrated. Carol, the reading program is working, get on board or be honest enough to tell the truth about where you really stand on reform. Celebrate success, Carol and admit that you were wrong. Give credit to the people who truly made the changes and took the risk to bring about these evident positive changes at VUSD

Samuel to PPB wrote on Sep 9, 2007 1:32 PM:Thank you for the information. I will do some research on it. Unfortunately because of the District's continuing drop in scores something else had to be tried to turn things around faster. It is my understanding that one of the biggest assets of the Lindamood Bell program is its evaluation program. There is testing to learn what a student’s reading deficiencies are and help is tailored to that particular problem. I don’t know if the HM program offered this same type of evaluation or not. However, I do not recall hearing teachers supporting that program the way they are the LB. I realize that whenever changes are made people are hurt. However, it was obvious that something had to be done and it has been. Dr. Bales has successfully used this method before and seems to have invigorated our staff. I’m somewhat confused why there continues to be ongoing opposition to a proven program. It is obvious that this District accepted students as first graders and never taught them how to read or write during their twelve years of schooling. What a shame! We are in the process of correcting that now. What is the problem?

Olive... wrote on Sep 9, 2007 1:51 PM:I think it is outstanding that the students at Olive Elementary have achieved so much. Kudos to Hector Menchaca who prior to Zybert focused on K-3 improvement in reading.

Taxpayer wrote on Sep 9, 2007 2:19 PM:It’s strange to hear Carol Herrera comment on reform. In her last campaign for re-election she said all the schools were wonderful and there was no need for change. She receives all her money from the Union which has opposed the reading program and ANY type of reform at VUSD. Now her and her Union friends want to take credit for the positive changes at the district when she has been one of the biggest nay-sayers and road blocks to any type of change that does not directly benefit the Union. She is the biggest supporter of the failed bilingual program and the biggest critic of mainstreaming Spanish speakers. Carol and her Union friends were in control of this district for the last 15 years as it success slowly disintegrated. Carol, the reading program is working, get on board or be honest enough to tell the truth about where you really stand on reform. Celebrate success, Carol and admit that you were wrong. Give credit to the people who truly made the changes and took the risk to bring about these evident positive changes at VUSD

still disappointed wrote on Sep 9, 2007 2:47 PM:I think the tone of this article is a much more positive one than Stacy Brandt took in his article last week on failing Vista schools. Perhaps he caught some heat on that. I'm still disappointed that once again he failed to mention Beaumont Elementary by name,and give them credit for their 50 point gain. The picture seen in this article as well as last week were both taken at Beaumont. For those of you wondering about the success of programs like LmB or Houghton Mifflin, I credit much teacher success to the district's wise move to adopt Edusoft,through which all of the individual students' testing data can be uploaded and then printed out in many forms: class graphs, individual student reports, etc. Through staff development teachers have learned to use this technology to provide hard data which then can drive their instruction. In short, teachers can be much more focused on each student's academic needs.

still disappointed wrote on Sep 9, 2007 2:55 PM:I have to qualify one of my above statements: Beaumont is mentioned in the above online article, but once again omitted in the one appearing in the newspaper.

PPB to still disappointed wrote on Sep 9, 2007 4:13 PM:You are so right about Edusoft. Again this was brought in about 3 years ago. Steady hard work by dedicated teachers and admin over this time as well as intensive interventions are esponsible for the gains. Again it takes time and VUSD has been working hard. Sadly, the board, who never visits the school sites, are totally unaware of this hard work.

Something Smells Really FISHY wrote on Sep 9, 2007 6:30 PM:Hey NCT it what you are reporting is so true and the test scores went up and bla. bla. bla. then you did you not give us the link to the CDE test results? Are you part of the cover up..ups I mean part of the problem or part of the solution. You know what they say, "Ignorance is a bliss." NCT you just keep your readers BLISSING!!!

All Blissed Out wrote on Sep 9, 2007 6:37 PM:Here is the CDE link to the state results folks read for yourselves and compare VUSD with other school districts in the county or state. You decive if in fact VUSD is doing as good as we read about. http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2007/Viewreport.asp

State Test Reporting Site wrote on Sep 9, 2007 8:11 PM:http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/AcntRpt2007/2007GrowthDstApi.aspx?cYear=&allcds=3768452&cChoice=2007GDst2

Top Scores From the Bottom Up wrote on Sep 9, 2007 8:27 PM:My hat goes off the the Vista Unified School District's charter schools. They had the best scores in the entire state. VUSD was pretty close behind them but Both Guajome Park and SIATECH took the cake.

Digging Deeper wrote on Sep 9, 2007 9:25 PM:Everyone is thrilled to see the improvement in the Vista schools with the lowest socioeconomic base and highest number of second language learners. Let's make sure the credit is given to the proper programs. This test improvement is due to decisions made by the board in advance of the hiring of Dr. Bales. A few years ago,the board voted to extinguish bilingual education and default to an SEI class structure. The largest gains in test scores at the underperforming schools are happening for the students that are now being taught only in English-- this can be verified by looking at the Edusoft data and the longitudinal match of students in the SEI classes. As the teacher from Bobier noted, the few students (about 35 per site) that went to Lindmood Bell, were pulled out for two hours a day, five days a week for ten weeks ( a loss of 100 hours of classroom instruction) and saw CST scores decline, not increase. Another reason that test scores are rising at the underperforming schools is that in our five hours of instructional time, there is a laser focus on math (75 min per day) and reading programs ( 3 hours per day), and there hasn't been any social studies, science, art, music instruction. PE gets minor attention. We have traded off educating the whole child, and meeting the needs of the academically proficient child, to focus all of our effort on the bottom third of our classes. And let's not forget, teachers are more savvy to the test format and areas of concentration. Every teacher I work with is focused, accountable and working extremely hard to ensure that our students are progressing and learning every day.

ALEXANDER wrote on Sep 9, 2007 11:53 PM:Sttacy Brandy once morenot saying the ral trut reporting what the big problem in Vista is,it is not elemetry schools but the big problemis middle and high schools;drugs, gangs, terrorism and more is the real challenge none of the programs stacy brandy stated will impact very much in our schools unless Dr. Bales call for the new czar to come to save our children freedom.

To PPB wrote on Sep 10, 2007 5:43 AM:You mention that HM was started 3 years ago and only now are the students arriving at 2nd grade. Thus, from what you say this program was started in Kindergarten and only benefits the incoming generation. Under such a program it would take 12 years to see total success and you would be neglecting a whole generation of students for whom you are responsible. Dr. Bales brought in LMB and it is capable of being applied across all 12 grades. It has been in VUSD for about a year now and we do see some results. But, here again we will need to see it expanded beyond its current scope while we continue to follow those students who have already been entered into the program. The Reading First HM program may well be a good first start in the K through 3 grades, but as we all know students come and go around this District quite regularly (Carol Herrera has spoken of this transitory group of students many times and often blamed them for the problems seen at VUSD). So, without a good set of tools to evaluate these transitory students, and the continued progress of others, the Reading First Program would have only elevated scores a few points in a few grades for a few years. So, get off your High Horse and stop beating up the incoming Administrators. It was the failing of the many who are on their way out that put us in this mess in the first place. Change is welcome and needs a chance to succeed, just as your HM program needs time to see its results.

Water Under the Bridge wrote on Sep 10, 2007 5:50 AM:A set of these Blogs seems to be attempting to tout the accomplishments of administrators that have either retired or moved on, while also downplaying any accomplishments of the current administration. WHY? Those that have retired or moved on are gone for good and will never return, while those that are here now will be for a while to come. Your continued attemps to misdirect the public will only serve to keep VUSD in the duldrums of the past and prevent any real successes of the students in the coming years. This constant disrespecting of Dr. Bales and her choices is the best way to ensure low moral amonst the teachers and staff at our schools and ensure the ultimate failure of our students' education. If this is what you want, then you need to get a new life, as those of us with children inthis District only wnat to see improvement and NOT the continued bickering and complaining of a bunch of loosers!

Baby Steps wrote on Sep 10, 2007 1:43 PM: Hahhh, "Water Under the Bridge" what in the world did you say? Hum, do you think that free speech blogs are going to bring down the academic success of students? I think you need to think a little deeper beyond the computer. I personally like Dr. Bales and have great respect for her efforts but the reality is that she inherited a school district that is scraping the bottom of the barrel. The previous administration ran the school district to the ground but they made sure they got some real cushy retirement packages. Unfortunately, VUSD score improvement of 2-6 points is nothing in comparison with the hundreds of points they have to make up, so don’t blow the horn just yet.

VUSD Parent wrote on Sep 10, 2007 2:11 PM:There is finally improvement! Keep doing what we are doing. Keep it up! Raise test scores! Kids need to know how to read to learn any subject! Learn in English and learn to read! A BIG THANK YOU to Joyce Bales.

Fishy alright wrote on Sep 12, 2007 5:30 PM:Oh come on...couldn't you see it coming? There is no way that Lindamood Bell can take the credit in such a short time. Credit needs to go to those teachers (not all) that are working very hard to reach all students for the past couple of years, not just a couple of months.

Furthermore wrote on Sep 12, 2007 9:18 PM:Many of the schools that did post huge gains,(Breeze Hill, Monte Vista, Lake, Alamosa) had zero exposure to the Lindamood Bell process last year. I am reading no glowing reports about them. Everyone is heaping praise on someone who has really not done much more than spend MILLIONS of your taxpayer funds on her pet LMB project. ANY program or 1 on 1 intervention should produce dramatic gains.

why wrote on Sep 13, 2007 5:37 PM:why does it cost so much to do the obvious...... teach the kids the basics reading, writing and arithmetic?

Teacher wrote on Sep 15, 2007 9:17 AM:Have you looked a the success rate of LMB? How many students do they really help? ... Is this the success program that is bring up scores? I think we have to look at the work done over the last 3 to 4 years. No one makes a change is student learning in one year. Success starts to show in assessment when it really takes hold, over time. You can not take students out of academic classes for extra training. They then fall behind in other areas. If a child is having problems in reading and not in math you will create more problems by pulling them out of math. I like what I see from LMB, but you must do this in addition not in place of classroom instruction. This pull out will cause additional problems in the coming years.

Limitedtruth wrote on Sep 15, 2007 4:59 PM:Anything mentioned about LmB is premature, especially since so many of the schools (Bobier, Hannalei to name just a few) raised scores dramatically without that program. Heck, it appears that even that special ed school, Sierra Vista, raised its scores. Let's give credit where it's due. It's because of the hard work of teachers and administrators of Vista. Some of them are now missing in action.

Fred wrote on Sep 16, 2007 10:34 AM:I have been around a lot of teachers that love teaching. They are passionate about teaching. They work well over their contracted time focusing on preparing for the students. While progress on standardized testing may be looking up, beware creating an environment where the teachers who still love teaching begin to dislike being teachers. The best way to avoid creating that environment is to respect the teachers' time. It is the number one complaint I here from teachers about their administrators...their time is not respected. Administrators who accept all the glory without acknowledging the efforts of the teachers are disrepecting the teachers' time just as much as the administrators that have numerous unproductive meetings...taking away from class prep time...hence taking As for giving credit to certain programs for improved test scores...one to two years is nothing more than a Hawthorne effect. See what happens after a longer period of time.