Schools risk failing federal standards

Local schools are in danger of falling behind federal standards by 2009, Palo Alto school-district employees warned at a September Board of Education meeting. But these standards are up for revision and people should ask politicians for change, speakers said at a Friday conference in Palo Alto.

"You've got to write or e-mail now. In the next two or three weeks, the Senate is talking about marking up this law and the house is revising its draft bill," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor and expert on the No Child Left Behind Act.

Experts such as Darling-Hammond and school superintendents from across the nation weighed in on the consequences of the act at the Friday conference. Titled "Reauthorization of NCLB: A New Era in Education?" it was sponsored by Zaner-Bloser, an educational materials company.

The act's stringent requirements call for 100 percent proficiency in reading and math in all schools by 2014. Schools must regularly and rapidly improve to meet standards.

Palo Alto's schools may soon fall behind, district Assessment Director William Garrison said at a school-board meeting on Sept. 11. The act's proficiency requirements for socioeconomically disadvantaged students will rise above current scores by 2009, he said.

While poorer students now score 41 percent proficient in English-language arts and 37 percent proficient in math, the act demands increases to 45 percent by 2009 and 56 percent by 2010, Garrison said.

Superintendents from high-achieving districts such as Palo Alto spoke of being penalized despite overall excellence at Friday's conference.

"We missed one of 29 benchmarks by two points," at Pearl Sample Elementary School in Culpeper, Va., said Superintendent David Cox.

"We had to offer parents the choice to allow them to go to another school," Cox said.

The school also spent a lot of time explaining to the community that it was not a failure despite government sanctions, Cox said.

In addition to mere negative perceptions, federal censure of non-qualifying schools includes a probation period and eventual restructuring after repeated failure.

It is an unfair system, said Superintendent Basan Nembirkow of Brockton, Mass.

Brockton's high school has won a model-school award and an excellence scholarship from the governor, Nembirkow said.

"But we're a gateway community with influx from Africa and the islands," he said. The flow of new students with limited English ability makes test scores lag behind federal standards, he said. "The school might be forced to restructure" as a result, he said.

All schools are predestined for failure under the act — not just those in high-scoring districts snagged by unforgiving standards, Darling-Hammond said. "If current rules hold it's likely all California schools will be designated failures in the coming years," she said.

Yet there is consensus in Washington that the flawed law needs revision, Darling-Hammond said. "Some call it 'No School Board Left Standing,' or 'No Child's Behind Left,'" she joked. Now is a crucial time to write representatives and point out the policy's weak points, she said. Although the law is under review, lobbying groups are speaking out more than individual citizens, she said.

"I was with a Senate staffer last week and he said, 'Nobody's writing. Nobody's calling,'" she said.

There are several effective ways to change the law that citizens can suggest to lawmakers, Darling-Hammond said. Evaluation methods should be re-written to account for individual student progress, rather than taking group averages, she said. Averages penalize schools serving needier students, she said.

Looking at each student individually makes more sense, district employee Garrison agreed.

"We have students coming into the district all the time who don't speak a word of English, and they're not going to be able to pass a test of a certain level right away," he said.

"The progress model is a much better model," he said.

Palo Alto Superintendent Kevin Skelly has also advocated looking at individual scores for improvement rather than focusing on the overall achievement gap between student groups.