Federal evaluations create goals and frustration

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a five-part series on how the local school district is dealing with the No Child Left Behind Act.

To many at Wilson Elementary School, last summer felt like a cosmic joke. The school made another leap on its standardized test scores, posting better results for the sixth straight year. Low-income students, taken as a subgroup, topped themselves again. Some of the wealthier schools across town posted lower gains. But in August, the federal government put Wilson on the sanctions list because its test scores were below par.

The reason? One Wilson student too many failed the state English exam.

Wilson, which is in year three of the Program Improvement list, met 16 of its 17 criteria under the No Child Left Behind Act. To meet federal guidelines, schools must have enough students score as proficient or above on the English and math tests, and each subgroup of students — white, Latino, low-income, special education — must reach the marks individually.

At Wilson last year, 24.1% of English-learner students scored proficient in English, missing the federal benchmark by 0.3%. In a group of 328 students, that calculates to a single child.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Wilson first-grade teacher Jenny Dory. “Our teachers are dedicated to the education of these students.”

With 67% of students described as English-learners and 94% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, Wilson ranks either among the best schools in Newport-Mesa or among the worst — depending on which statistics tell the story. On the state’s Academic Performance Index, which judges schools by how much their scores have risen in the last year, Wilson has flourished in the last five years, gaining 200 points out of 1,000. According to the federal system, however, Wilson has failed to make adequate progress.

To opponents of No Child Left Behind, stories like Wilson’s serve as proof that something’s got to give. The act, which President Bush signed in 2002, is up for reauthorization this year, and the White House has proposed a number of changes — including giving schools more credit for improved scores. No one, though, seems to expect the law to go off the books any time soon.

“Some people vote for this sort of thing because they don’t want to seem anti-education,” said Newport Beach Rep. John Campbell. “They want to support it because they think if they vote against it, it will seem like they want to leave children behind.”

The government requires all students to be proficient by 2014 — and even for high-performing schools, that can look like an impossible task. Not all schools, though, would wind up on the intervention list. Program Improvement only targets schools with more than 40% low-income students — known as Title I schools — while more affluent sites could repeatedly miss the mark and still not undergo sanctions.

Pat McCabe, the state’s director of education policy and evaluation, said that may be just as well.

“We have some very good schools in the state,” he said. “We don’t have one school in the state today where 100% of kids are proficient in English and math.”

The government started a pilot program last year in which states can apply to use their growth models to measure student progress.

According to a spokeswoman for Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, the government rejected California’s plan because it didn’t focus enough on the achievement gap or give students a time limit for becoming proficient.

No Child Left Behind may have its critics in Newport-Mesa, but a defender could point to a few ways that the act has benefited schools. The district’s test scores have improved consistently since the law was signed, though usually in small increments. In 2002, 40% of Newport-Mesa second-graders — the youngest students to take the California Standards Tests — were proficient in English; last year, the number was 52%.

Moreover, many administrators like to have a challenge — and a set of guidelines. Susan Astarita, assistant superintendent of elementary education, said she favors a federal accountability system, although she would prefer one that measured schools by growth rather than fixed standards.

TeWinkle Middle School Principal Dan Diehl said he would have welcomed a pacing plan when he started teaching English-learners in Texas 14 years ago. Still, Diehl had issues with some of the act’s terminology.

“I think high expectations for all kids are the most fair things you can have,” he said. “I support that 100%. I think putting a label on a school like ‘low-performing’ can be detrimental, just like putting a label on a child.”