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Governor wants interventions for failing school districts
By: Staff and wire reports
Districts in Escondido and Fallbrook are on list | ∞
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday recommended additional sanctions for 97 California school districts that have consistently failed to make progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, including two districts in North County.
The federal act, passed in 2001, requires schools and statistically significant groups of students -- such as special education students, English learners and low-income students -- to meet testing benchmarks each year. The federal government increases those targets each year and expects all students and subgroups to pass the math and English tests by 2014.
Escondido Union School District and Fallbrook Union High School District are on the list for failing to meet achievement goals for four straight years. Both will face relatively light sanctions compared with other districts on the list that are performing more poorly.
Elementary schools in Escondido are on the list for a "light" level of support, which means the district will need to pick a state-approved consultant to help develop a plan to meet federal academic targets.
However, the district has done that already with help from the San Diego County Office of Education, so nothing further will be required next year, said Brenda Jones, assistant superintendent in charge of educational service for the district.
"We're basically going to continue what we've already started," she said.
Fallbrook's high school district is on the list in the "other" category, which means it narrowly missed federal targets and can revise its plan internally.
Schwarzenegger has recommended severe or moderate sanctions for nearly half the districts on the list.
Those districts, responsible for educating nearly one-third of California's public school students, face sanctions for the first time under the federal law because they have failed to meet achievement goals for four years.
The failing districts have been split into four groups under the plan: those facing severe, moderate, light and other action. For many, that will mean teams of education experts that will assess the districts' curriculum, testing, teacher quality and other issues.
They will then recommend action to the state Board of Education, which must approve Schwarzenegger's plan before it can take effect.
Schwarzenegger has vowed to make California the first state in the nation to embrace the penalty aspect of the law. But he said state leaders had worked hard to make sure the penalties were in proportion to the problems in each district.
"It's not a hostile takeover," Schwarzenegger said at Northwood Elementary School in Sacramento, where he toured the campus. "We are going to work with the schools."
If it had not intervened, the governor's office said, the state would have risked losing up to $45 million in federal money to help turn the districts around.
The proposal Schwarzenegger developed with Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell calls for teams of experts to intervene and devise ways to boost student achievement.
Seven school districts face the harshest sanctions, which eventually could include replacing administrators or a takeover by the state.
They are: Greenfield Union Elementary in Monterey County; Arvin Union Elementary and Fairfax Elementary in Kern County; West Fresno Elementary in Fresno County; Ravenswood City Elementary in San Mateo County; Keppel Union Elementary in Los Angeles County; and Coachella Valley Unified in Riverside County.
Coachella, a district in far southeastern California with a high migrant population, faces the harshest sanctions. O'Connell wants the Riverside County Office of Education to become trustee of the district and will recommend that action to the state Board of Education.
Schwarzenegger's embracing of No Child Left Behind marks a departure from the state's opposition to the six-year-old law, said Russlyn Ali, director of Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based policy and research group and a member of the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence.
But she is worried about how the state will pay for and implement the interventions. That concern is magnified by a state budget deficit of $16 billion and Schwarzenegger's own proposal to cut $4 billion in education spending in the budget year that begins July 1.
"On the one hand, I think it is magnanimous that the state is saying to these districts, 'You do not have to shoulder this burden alone.' On the other, don't make false promises," Ali said. "If you're telling them you're going to shoulder the burden of this, then bring it."
In his State of the State address in January, Schwarzenegger said he would make California the first in the nation to embrace the authority it was given under the federal law "to turn these districts around."
"No more waiting," he said. "We must act on behalf of the children."
California school districts facing sanctions under federal law
Here is a list of the 96 California school districts and one county office of education that face sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act:
County / District
Alameda / Berkeley Unified
Alameda/ Oakland Unified
Alameda / San Lorenzo Unified
Butte / Chico Unified
Butte / Oroville City Elementary
Butte / Thermalito Union Elementary
Fresno / Fresno Unified
Fresno / West Fresno Elementary
Kern / Arvin Union Elementary
Kern / Bakersfield City Elementary
Kern / Delano Union Elementary
Kern / Fairfax Elementary
Kern / Greenfield Union Elementary
Kern / Kern Union High
Kern / Richland Union Elementary
Kern / Taft City Elementary
Kern / Vineland Elementary
Kern / Wasco Union Elementary
Kern / McFarland Unified
Kings / Hanford Elementary
Kings / Reef-Sunset Unified
Los Angeles / Antelope Valley Union High
Los Angeles / Castaic Union Elementary
Los Angeles / Eastside Union Elementary
Los Angeles / Keppel Union Elementary
Los Angeles / Lancaster Elementary
Los Angeles / Lennox Elementary
Los Angeles / Los Angeles Unified
Los Angeles / Montebello Unified
Los Angeles / Mountain View Elementary
Los Angeles / Palmdale Elementary
Los Angeles / Pomona Unified
Los Angeles / Wilsona Elementary
Los Angeles / Compton Unified
Madera / Madera Unified
Marin / Lagunitas Elementary
Merced / Atwater Elementary
Merced / Merced City Elementary
Merced / Planada Elementary
Monterey / Alisal Union Elementary
Monterey / Greenfield Union Elementary
Monterey / King City Union Elementary
Monterey / Monterey Peninsula Unified
Monterey / Salinas City Elementary
Monterey / Salinas Union High
Nevada / Nevada Joint Union High
Orange / Orange County Office of Education
Orange / Santa Ana Unified
Placer / Tahoe-Truckee Joint Unified
Riverside / Banning Unified
Riverside / Hemet Unified
Riverside / Jurupa Unified
Riverside / Moreno Valley Unified
Riverside / Palm Springs Unified
Riverside / Perris Elementary
Riverside / Romoland Elementary
Riverside / San Jacinto Unified
Riverside / Coachella Valley Unified
Sacramento / Del Paso Heights Elementary
Sacramento / North Sacramento Elementary
San Benito / Hollister School District
San Bernardino / Chaffey Joint Union High
San Bernardino / Colton Joint Unified
San Bernardino / Ontario-Montclair Elementary
San Bernardino / Rialto Unified
San Bernardino / San Bernardino City Unified
San Bernardino / Victor Valley Union High
San Diego / Escondido Union Elementary
San Diego / Fallbrook Union High
San Diego / Grossmont Union High
San Diego / San Ysidro Elementary
San Diego / South Bay Union Elementary
San Joaquin / Lodi Unified
San Joaquin / Stockton City Unified
San Joaquin / Tracy Joint Unified
San Luis Obispo / San Luis Coastal Unified
San Mateo / Ravenswood City Elementary
Santa Barbara / Santa Maria-Bonita Elementary
Santa Barbara / Santa Barbara Elementary
Santa Clara / East Side Union High
Santa Cruz / Pajaro Valley Unified School
Solano / Vacaville Unified
Solano / Vallejo City Unified
Sonoma / Sonoma Valley Unified
Sonoma / Healdsburg Unified
Stanislaus / Modesto City Elementary
Stanislaus / Modesto City High
Tulare / Burton Elementary
Tulare / Earlimart Elementary
Tulare / Tulare City Elementary
Tulare / Visalia Unified
Tulare / Woodlake Union Elementary
Ventura / Hueneme Elementary
Ventura / Oxnard Elementary
Ventura / Rio Elementary
Yolo / Winters Joint Unified
Yuba / Marysville Joint Unified
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Common denominator wrote on Feb 28, 2008 12:14 AM:Gee, is there a common denominator besides poor testing that unites these schools that are failing? Yes.
They are struggling trying to educate children, ..., who unfortuanety are Non English speaking.
Our schools are failing because they are having to deal with the effects of illegal immigration.
Goodluck to all the kids,teachers and schools!
Come On! wrote on Feb 28, 2008 5:48 AM:If you want schools to perform better quit taking away all of their money! There is a reason CA is at the bottom in education.
Maybe it is time to write the governer a letter and tell him to get his head out of his...
Jamie wrote on Feb 28, 2008 6:49 AM:Hey where are the North County schools on the list? Vista Unified should be on the severe sanctions list. What happened how was it take off?
Lets see when wrote on Feb 28, 2008 6:51 AM:some of the school districts are dealing with students who don't speak English, I quess I could see where they might not meet the goal.
JSten wrote on Feb 28, 2008 7:41 AM:Ohh I get it!
Cut off funding to the entire group of school systems so you can provide additional resources to the non-performing school systems.
very crafty,
Its so crazy, it might just work.
from a teacher's husband wrote on Feb 28, 2008 9:39 AM:I hear this every night she comes home, she has 20 students and 5 five of them cannot write or speak in the English language. You try to bring this up to their parents...but...it's kind of hard when they dont speak / write / understand the language either.
If I illegally moved my family to china for a better life, I would do everything my power to learn chinese so I could better assimilate into society. It just makes sense!
To Jamie wrote on Feb 28, 2008 9:45 AM:I believe that article refers to school districts who are new to the sanctions list...not schools who are already on the list.
Better than you think wrote on Feb 28, 2008 12:01 PM:This is about school DISTRICTS being sanctioned, not the individual schools. VUSD is not on the list because it has been steadily improving since 2001. (Of course, SOME people would prefer that you did not realize that. THEY keep saying that the district did not improve until last year. Checking the data at the CDE website gives a much better picture of how the district has done.) Although some VUSD schools haven't improved enough, the district, as a whole, has improved considerably - at least on test scores.
I,,erse tje kids in English wrote on Feb 28, 2008 2:17 PM:Young children should be immersed in English if they are not English speakers. I was shocked when I went into the Penasquitos library to see they have a story time for toddlers/preschoolers in Spanish. What?
Why would you do that? Mom or dad can read to them in Spanish at home, but for those kids to be successful in our schools they should be hearing English at story times, etc. Duh!!
When did our libraries get into providing story times in Spanish. This is conterproductive!
Patriot wrote on Feb 28, 2008 3:58 PM:How convenient it is for the feds to allow thousands of illegal aliens into our state, force our schools to enroll their children, and then sanction the same schools when they don't meet academic standards. The feds created this mess and the feds should pay to clean it up. Arnold should be in Washington telling them so.
Julie wrote on Feb 28, 2008 5:35 PM:Better than you think-hum I am not too sure I think it will take more than a miracle to change VUSD stats. One or two points mean absolutely nothing in the whole picture. I think they need to pull in points by the dozen; by the way why is the charter school Guajome advertising for enrollment? I thought they were the best charter school and according to their advertisements, “THE AWARD WINNING SCHOOL.” So I heard they totally boomed in the state scores too? I read they scored worst than any VUSD school and Guajome cannot say they are overcrowded.
Some subject scores were 63% BELLOW AVERAGE WOW!!!
Patriot wrote on Feb 28, 2008 7:43 PM:is exactly right! I'm a teacher at one of those schools where (due to lax border enforcement by the Feds) many of the illegal aliens bring their students. Then, we do get punished under NCLB for not having students proficient in English in one year. In fact, if they've been in the country 90 days, they have to take standardized tests in English and they count toward our school's score!
Other teachers and I don't like this situation but we're basically unable to do anything about it...
brenda wrote on Mar 8, 2008 3:09 PM:I work in San Bernardino Unified at one of the high schools. We made all benchmarks excpet the English Learners in English. What a surprise. the students who are not proficient in English did not pass the proficiency test. For that, we are labeled failing even though all other areas are satisfactory. guess we make convenient scapegoats.
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