School Board Adopts Get-Tough Stance : Education: Trustees will hold principals and teachers accountable if priority programs aren’t carried out.

Any San Diego city school with standardized achievement test scores below state averages will have to boost them significantly within the next two years or be held more responsible than in the past for the lack of academic improvement, school district trustees vowed this week.

Frustrated by the continuing lack of progress in boosting student achievement--especially among blacks and Latinos--the school board plans to get tougher with teachers and principals by holding them more accountable for failure to carry out priority programs.

At a special retreat in Rancho Santa Fe this week, the board agreed to do away with its usual long laundry list of objectives and instead concentrate on just three goals for the next two years.

The centerpiece will be a new requirement that schools must show better student performance as measured by California Assessment Program (CAP) standardized test scores, the annual measure of the state’s educational pulse in reading, writing and mathematics.

Any school with CAP scores below state averages this year--most of them with predominantly non-white enrollments--will have until the 1991-92 school year to close by half the gap between its scores and district averages, which as a whole are above those of the state.

For example, Baker Elementary in Southeast San Diego had a grade 3 CAP reading score of 203 this year, far below the state average of 277 and the district average of 294. As a result, it would have to raise its score 45 points--half the difference to the district average--under the new board objective. A total of 33 schools have scores below the state average at grade 3.

In addition, top district administrators will be responsible for closing the gap by half for Latino and black ethnic students whose overall CAP scores as a group are below state and district averages for all students.

The other two objectives to be stressed are the massive new program to teach students in kindergarten through the 8th grade to read and write using literature, and the common core program to give all secondary students college-preparatory materials in their classes. Those two programs, if carried out according to district theory, will prepare students strongly in problem-solving and comprehension skills which are increasingly emphasized on CAP tests in place of rote learning and basic skills.

Already, 12 low-achieving schools throughout the district have had the gap-closing requirement outlined to them. At a two-day “think-tank” session late last month, principals at those schools were told that they must restructure to meet that objective. Until now, the district’s restructuring program--where teachers and other school employees improve achievement by taking more responsibility for curriculum and management--has been voluntary.

While schools Supt. Tom Payzant conceded that restructuring was becoming mandatory, he said principals and teachers at the individual schools would still retain the option of designing their own plans for improving instruction at their sites.

But several board members expressed skepticism that individual initiative will suffice in all cases, raising the issue of whether the board must become more aggressive in rewarding those teachers and principals who succeed and punishing those who do not.

“I frankly don’t think some of these principals can do it,” board President Kay Davis said, referring to the 12 being placed in the forefront of the gap-closing objective. Davis participated in the late April think-tank.

“Some of those schools have ‘leaderless’ leaders and we’ve got to transfer them out if we don’t feel they can do it . . . it’s not fair to the teachers to expect them to do all these changes with a lazy, incompetent, or aging leader.”

Board Vice President Shirley Weber added, “Start with the top and the message will get down” to remaining employees regarding the seriousness of the CAP-related objective.

Several assistant superintendents at the meeting agreed with Davis, saying that they know not all of their principals are up to the task.

In the face of the board’s strong feelings about accountability, Payzant admitted that nationwide, few if any school districts “are addressing in any specific way the consequences” of not carrying out programs successfully.

“Everyone is saying they realize they have to have accountability but no one says what to do if what we want to happen (academically) doesn’t happen.”

Several board members offered their own ideas of how to put more teeth into the evaluation system, although they also indicated willingness to give teachers more training in new curriculum if needed.

Both Weber and Trustee Jim Roache suggested that the district use demotions and even terminations more often.

Weber said the district’s current method of evaluating employees is flawed because more than 90% of all teachers and principals receive satisfactory evaluations, a level she considers unrealistic. As a result, those who receive “needs improvement” actions consider the mark tantamount to career failure rather than regarding it positively as a means to improve, she said.

Roache wants less reliance on transfers, which have been the district’s major means of rewarding and punishing employees. A principal doing a poor job at one school, for example, is transferred to another school in the hope he or she will shape up with a new climate and staff.

Davis would like to see schools that meet the district’s objectives move to the top of the list for maintenance visits, for example. The district has an extensive backlog of maintenance projects at practically every school.

For schools doing poorly, Davis said the principal should be required to explain why students failed to meet academic standards in front of an assembly of teachers and parents, and to have the school record posted prominently in the lobby.

“Those might get the message across and they wouldn’t cost anything,” Davis said.

Payzant, aware that the board has given him substantial leeway over the past eight years to articulate his own vision of how to improve education, tried to strike a balance.

He said that the new specificity outlined in the gap-closing requirement will make it easier for administrators to judge a school’s performance.

But Payzant asked for a more optimistic view of human nature.

“I think you have to give people time and staff support to move forward and not let the shoe fall until we’ve given them the opportunity to improve,” Payzant said. Assuming that schools are not simply overwhelmed by the gap-closing idea, “then you will find schools coming up with good ideas to carry out.”

Only after failure with their plan should punishment be considered, he said, but still Payzant remained reluctant to define what the consequences should be in such cases.

Payzant said due-process requirements would have to be met in accountability cases, reminding everyone that the teachers’ union and other employee bargaining groups will not favor any of their ideas, especially if punishments target one group.

“There’s also a big difference between the rhetoric of getting rid of someone and the reality of doing it,” Payzant added, “and my sense is that the reality in private industry is not that much different from ours.”