Schools Grapple With Problem of Low Scores

Administrators at low-performing public elementary schools in the San Fernando Valley vowed Wednesday to step up their efforts to boost student achievement in response to their dismal showing in California’s first-ever ranking of public schools.

Thirty-one of 129 Valley public elementary schools ranked 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 on the new Academic Performance Index compared to other schools statewide. A 10 represents the highest ranking.

Eight schools with the lowest statewide ranking, however, scored a 5 or better when compared to schools with similar demographics, such as socioeconomic status, teacher qualifications and students who are not fluent in English.

Fair Avenue in North Hollywood scored a 2 in statewide ranking and a 10 in its group of similar schools. Osceola Street in Sylmar, Oxnard Street in North Hollywood and Morningside Elementary in San Fernando all scored 2 and 9, respectively.

Morningside Principal Nick Antonio Vasquez attributed his school’s strong showing among similar schools to its participation in a $40-million reading and math program called project GRAD, or Graduation Really Achieves Dreams.

“The GRAD program has made an incredible difference; it’s heaven-sent,” Vasquez said. “With proper implementation, leadership and support, we can expect it [scores and rankings] to go up.”

Morningside became the first of 12 schools in the San Fernando cluster to start the program 1 1/2 years ago. It includes a reading curriculum called “Success for All”; at least 105 hours of teacher training; and full-time social workers.

Vasquez said participating in GRAD for a year contributed to a 7-point improvement on the Stanford 9 test.

The API, which makes California one of 26 states to publicly rank schools or districts, is based solely on the Stanford 9 basic skills test, which was given last spring to nearly 4.3 million public school students.

Critics say the rankings unfairly penalize schools with large numbers of students not fluent in English, who cannot comprehend the Stanford 9 test. This applies to most of the Valley schools that ranked poorly, said attorney Lew Hollman, an education litigator and executive director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest.

“You have to have a fair test, a test they can read,” Hollman said.

At Valerio Street Elementary School in Van Nuys, Assistant Principal Thomas Kutras said he expects his campus’ scores of 1 and 6 to go up in coming years as Spanish-speaking students become more proficient in English.

“It takes students several years to [make the] transition from one language to another, just as it would take an English speaker learning another language,” he said.

Pacoima Elementary Principal Irene Smerigan, whose school scored a 1 in both categories, said the scores point to a lack of consistency in reading and mathematics instruction.

“What has happened with public education is that it has tried to answer societal problems,” said Smerigan, who started her job Monday at Pacoima Elementary, one of the oldest, poorest and worst-performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Smerigan acknowledged that she faces an uphill challenge in turning around an overcrowded school where most students cannot read or speak English fluently.

In addition, about half of the school’s 85 teachers, many of whom are on emergency credentials, have worked in the profession for less than five years, Smerigan said.

“Teachers must begin to think of themselves as facilitators and change agents and not just fillers of empty vessels,” she said.

Because every school that scores below the state’s academic target of 800 is told how much it must improve its score before the second API is released next fall, Smerigan said she will spend the months between now and then talking to administrators at high-ranking schools.

She may only need to look as far as neighboring Vaughan Next Century Learning Center, a charter elementary school in Pacoima that has similar socioeconomic and ethnic characteristics but scored a 1 and 5.

Principal Yvonne Chan said administrators, teachers, staff, parents and students are all held accountable for the school’s success or failure.

“The rise and fall for schools with 1 and 1 scores will be to choose internal accountability over external accountability imposed upon them by the state,” Chan said.

Interest in the unprecedented statewide rankings spread far beyond school campuses--to real estate agents, homeowners associations and business organizations.

Real estate broker Lee Hull of Hull Realty in Sylmar said younger home buyers considering properties in the northeast Valley are concerned about the quality of public education.

“The only thing I can say to them is take students to private school or have the kids go to school in some other community,” she said. “When someone likes the house, but they have small kids and the school system is not good, it is something that could break the deal.”