District’s achievement scores a sore spot My...

District’s achievement scores a sore spot

My brain always hurts after reading our school district’s

performance results. The headlines say our scores have gone up, but

you have to go to the fine print on page 4 to see that our state

rankings have gone down. So how could this be? It becomes obvious

once you understand the state has changed its testing methods three

times in the last four years. To normalize the scores year-to-year,

they use a Scale Calibration Factor. If this reminds you of

“Enron-style” accounting practices, you are not alone.

Comparing year-to-year results is useless. The only meaningful

result is your state ranking. The average state results have gone up

by 100 points in the last five years. The state average for

elementary schools is now 729. If you have the feeling your school is

being left behind, you’re not alone. So as you look at your schools

ranking, please realize that you have to rank at least a 6 to be

ranked above the 50% mark. The rankings system starts at one, to

avoid ranking any school a zero.

In 1999, our district had five elementary schools that ranked

below 50%. Today, we have 10 schools scoring below 50% and 12 of our

schools rank below their similar school ranking. Speaking of

similar-ranked schools, I have seen the demographic data at some

schools change as much as 80% between the different scores.

If you realize that the city of Costa Mesa’s demographics has

significantly improved, you will realize the schools demographics is

significantly out of alignment with the taxpayers of this community.

If you are beginning to think the California Department of Education

is making a mockery of No Child Left Behind Act, you are not alone.

Accountability also appears to be a problem at the district level.

It is not lost on me that three of our schools this year had to go to

the streets, and to the Daily Pilot, to be heard. The districts

response was to create a civility policy, which threatens the parents

with arrest, if we do not behave. It fails to give the parents any

guidelines on how to escalate issues if we see a problem.

We owe it to the taxpayers, our children, and the dedicated

professionals of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to unite as

one district and address why we have so little success with our

rankings in the state.

JAMES JONES

Costa Mesa

Fight for flights provides insight

Support for nonstop Aloha Airlines flights from John Wayne Airport

to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., reveals two dirty

little secrets about our lobbying congressmen and perhaps the rest of

the traveling public: They don’t want to drive up to LAX and they

don’t want to land at Dulles, out in the country.

It is a pleasure to see congressmen cooperating on a

transportation venture, and I hope this spirit of problem solving

will extend to the opening of the much needed, planned El Toro

International Airport. No one is in the noise zone at El Toro, and it

has energy-efficient, crossed runways pointing directly at

Washington, D.C.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach