Schools score high on state standards

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District enjoyed a partial triumph

this week, with nearly all of its schools meeting state standards

even as many of them lagged behind federal requirements.

Newport-Mesa set a district record by having 31 of its 32 schools

show improvement on their Academic Performance Index (API) scores.

The district, however, was downgraded on the federal Adequate Yearly

Progress report, issued Wednesday along with the state scores, for

failing to meet established standards.

As a result, Newport-Mesa was one of many California districts

showing a disparity between the state and nationwide ranking systems.

The state results judge schools by their growth in test scores from

the year before; the yearly progress report, issued by the federal

government, holds all schools to the same performance standard

regardless of growth.

“Even though some of our schools did well on their API, they

haven’t been able to scramble up the ladder to that high target,”

said Peggy Anatol, Newport-Mesa’s director of assessment.

In the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush set a goal of

having all students become proficient in English and mathematics by

2014. This year, the federal Department of Education raised the

standards, requiring each school district to have 23% of students

proficient in English and 23.7% proficient in math. The targets last

year were 12% and 12.8%, respectively.

As a result, more than one-third of Newport-Mesa’s schools were

identified as failing to make adequate yearly progress in 2004-05,

even as all but Rea Elementary saw their scores on the state results

rise.

In some cases, those rises in state scores were significant.

Killybrooke Elementary posted a 54-point gain in its state scores

from 2003-04, the highest of any elementary school in the district.

Pomona Elementary and Ensign Intermediate School also saw 50-point

increases, while Adams, College Park, Davis, Whittier and Wilson

Elementary and TeWinkle Middle School lifted their scores as well.

All of these schools, however, failed to make adequate yearly

progress, because even their improved scores were not up to federal

standards.

Under No Child Left Behind, Title I schools -- economically

disadvantaged schools receiving federal funds -- must make adequate

yearly progress or enter the “program improvement” system, in which

schools set aside funds for staff development and allow students to

transfer out. Of the Newport-Mesa schools that failed to make

progress this year, all but Ensign Intermediate School are Title I

sites.

Newport-Mesa has four schools in program improvement: Pomona,

Whittier and Wilson elementary schools and TeWinkle Middle School.

Anatol predicted that at least four other Newport-Mesa schools --

College Park, Davis, Killybrooke and Rea -- would enter the program

improvement list after failing to make progress for two years in a

row.

Many in the state, including Supt. of Public Instruction Jack

O’Connell, have decried the federal ranking system and proposed that

the government should take schools’ growth more into account when

measuring their progress. After the results came back Wednesday

morning, a number of Newport-Mesa administrators voiced the same

opinion.

“We focus on API and on kids who have moved up, and the number who

are now proficient and advanced, while the other one [the federal

yearly progress report] has that line in the sand,” said Pat Insley,

principal of College Park Elementary. “It becomes something everyone

has to reach. We prefer the progress.”

Insley added, though, that her school’s success on the state

results outweighed the federal marks.

“The staff was very upbeat today,” she said.

Kathy Sanchez, the principal of Killybrooke, expressed similar

disappointment over her school’s failure to meet the federal

standard.

“It’s a very rigorous standard, and we worked hard,” she said. The

state scores, issued every August, summarize schools’ performance on

numerous standardized tests and on the California high school exit

exam. The index rates schools on a scale of 200 to 1,000, with 800

the target score. In 2004-05, 13 of Newport-Mesa’s 32 sites scored

higher than 800.

Meanwhile, the progress report judges students on the California

Standards Tests and the exit exam, and also factors in API scores and

graduation rates. It was the performance on the standards tests that

caused many Newport-Mesa schools to fall short of the federal mark.

Supt. Robert Barbot said he was proud of the state scores and that

he would also prefer a federal standard based more on growth.

However, he noted that he would take the progress report results into

account.

“We’re going to continue to strengthen those schools that are

doing really well,” he said. “But we’re talking as we speak about

what we need to do for those schools that have a growing rate of

need.”