Tale of 2 Schools--and 1 Chasm

California designed its Academic Performance Index to finally give the public a definitive measure of the state’s schools, but the first academic rankings also reinforce an age-old story--the vast chasm between rich and poor, between whites and many minorities.

At the top of the heap among 4,807 public elementary schools is a mostly white campus in Palo Alto, where Stanford professors and Silicon Valley engineers send their children. They also lavish cash donations, computers and countless volunteer hours on the 77-year-old school, which has a zoo and a museum right next door.

Mired at the bottom of the rankings is a school in the Coachella Valley farm town of Mecca, attended mostly by the children of farm workers and laborers. While the paint appears barely dry on the 2-year-old campus, virtually none of the 714 students attending class inside arrived fluent in English and nine out of 10 are so poor they get free or cut-rate school meals.

So the release Tuesday of the statewide rankings, based on the Stanford 9 standardized test, was a time of modest celebration at Walter Hays Elementary in Palo Alto and one of sadness but determination at Saul Martinez Elementary in Mecca.

“I truly don’t think we’re any better than most of the rest of the schools in California. Kids come in well-prepared and parents support them. We’re lucky,” said Cathy Chowenhill, a fourth-grade teacher at Hays Elementary. “I think about teachers in districts that scored lower who are just as good as we are, they work just as hard as we do.”

Paula Thayer, principal in Mecca, said she was not totally surprised by her students’ poor showing.

“Of course, a student who can’t read English will score a 1 on the tests,’ Thayer said. ‘But I still was so devastated by the news. When I heard, I bawled.”

Thayer attempted to lessen the anguish for her 34 teachers, and the piercing questions from newspaper reporters, by treating the staff to “comfort food”--doughnuts and chocolate cake.

Some things, Thayer realizes she can’t change, like the 25% or more of families that follow crops across the state or the fact that many children live in overcrowded apartments, in cars or under the trees of the community park.

The teachers must focus on so many basics before they can begin to teach. Many students are patients at an on-campus, federally funded clinic, where dentists repair young mouths that are sometimes fouled with infection.

Not only are the children struggling, but their parents are often illiterate, even in their native Spanish.

So Thayer’s teachers, 19 of whom don’t have full credentials, decided to begin instructing parents at night in English.

“We can only do as much as we can,” said teacher Nick Garcia.

“It’s hard to attract better-qualified teachers here,” Thayer said. “But my teachers make up for it with commitment and imagination.”

At the Coachella Valley Unified School District, administrators take heart in any small upward movement. Two years ago, five graduating seniors enrolled at UC Riverside. Last year, the number increased to 17.

“Gov. Davis wants us to pole vault 6 feet, and we’re just barely crawling,” Thayer said. “We know we don’t look so good, but we’ll keep working at it.”

Four hundred miles to the north at Hays Elementary, it’s as if they play an entirely different game.

Teachers, parents and administrators just keep thinking of new ways to get better. Parents rally each year to donate $150 per student for enrichment programs.

Forget gym class. Here, boys and girls receive “perceptual motor instruction” and daily evaluation during physical education--among the activities to measure and build coordination is walking on tiny stilts.

The Coachella Valley school has computers, yes, but the Palo Alto school not only has up to half a dozen terminals in each classroom, it has a computer lab stocked with 30 new iMac computers. Some of the computers have been donated by Silicon Valley companies that also sent instructors to train teachers.

The computers help set up a creative-writing program for fourth-graders called “Pixies and Paintings.” Students draw pictures of fantastic creatures and then write a detailed description and e-mail just the description to another school. Children on the receiving end then try to draw the creatures using only the written description, with results posted on the school’s Web page.

More important, the school has an abundance of parent volunteers. Four or five are prepared to give their time on any given day in each classroom.

“If they’re not able to be here, they’re at home supporting what goes on in the classroom,” said Principal Carol Piraino. “Kids are having trouble in school--they want to know, ‘What can I do to help them?’ ”

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Gorman reported from Mecca, Bruchey from Palo Alto. Also contributing were Times staff writer James Rainey in Los Angeles and Associated Press.