State Has Been There, Done That

Accountability, the new watchword among federal lawmakers, is nothing new to Aldama Elementary School in Highland Park.

Test scores at Aldama have generally doubled over the last few years, thanks to a relentless focus on reading and math by teachers and the school’s charismatic principal, Martha Trevino Powell. Even so, more than half of the school’s students remain below national averages and fewer than one in five has mastered the material the state says they need to know.

To some at Aldama and other California schools, the main message of the sweeping federal education bill that passed Congress on Tuesday is that teachers and others at low-performing schools are simply not trying hard enough.

But that, they say, is simply not true.

“I think our teachers are working as hard as they can,” Powell said.

The federal bill, approved with such fanfare as a model of common sense and compromise, actually falls in line with the direction some states, including California, already are taking in their testing and accountability programs.

But the limited progress in these states over the last decade suggests that the federal bill may be establishing a goal that, while laudable, is unrealistic. According to the legislation, every school in every state will be expected to show, within 12 years, that every student is proficient in basic subjects. Schools that do not could be closed and reopened under new management.

Aldama is just the sort of disadvantaged school the new legislation is designed to help. Nearly all of its students are poor enough to qualify for federally subsidized lunches. About three-quarters of them are still learning English.

Certainly the school has made progress. Since the state began testing students in grades 2 through 11 and monitoring schools’ progress, Aldama has adopted a structured curriculum, tried to bring inexperienced teachers up to speed, and provided extra help for students who fall behind.

But some problems are well beyond the reach of accountability programs. For example, setting high standards for achievement on tests in itself does not help attract experienced teachers to schools in poor neighborhoods. And an accountability program alone cannot lift children out of poverty--which is strongly linked to educational failure.

Experts say that no program or curriculum offers a silver bullet. Something that works well in one place can flop in another. The difference is often something as ineffable as a school’s culture--where one faculty stands shoulder to shoulder to take on challenges another may be riven by factions and dispirited by failure.

That’s one reason many veteran education reformers say that creating education policy in Washington is likely to produce unpredictable and uneven results.

Some teachers at schools such as Aldama wonder, in a practical sense, what more they can do. Aldama’s teachers have embraced the school district’s new reading program with almost religious zeal, devoting large amounts of time to it each day. Even veteran teachers, who once bristled at the notion of following a set of daily instructions, have signed on as test scores have risen.

But instead of more pressure, teachers say, what they would like out of Washington is more money to reduce the size of their fourth- and fifth-grade classes and to speed up the school’s long-awaited expansion. (The federal government provided about $5.4 billion of the state’s $54 billion in spending on public schools this year.)

“Another mandate is not going to alter our methods of instruction or what we need to teach,” said second-grade teacher Tina Cabriales.

The federal legislation does carry sanctions--allowing parents, if schools fail, to send their kids to public schools elsewhere or get private tutoring, at public expense.

But several Aldama parents said they would not take advantage of that option.

“This school is making a big difference for my kids,” said Yoselyn Blanco, 31, who has two children at Aldama.

In fact, the sheer magnitude of school problems in California and elsewhere could limit the federal bill’s effectiveness.

A Republican analysis of the bill estimates that more than 800 schools in California and thousands more nationwide face possible loss of federal money as early as next fall because of persistently poor performance. Nearly 150 of those schools are in Los Angeles.

“It’s not like there’s a wealth of expertise available for turning schools around,” said Susan Traiman, director of education initiatives for the Business Roundtable, which supported the legislation. “Clearly there’s going to be a bigger demand side than supply side.”

The legislation does promise to bring more money--and more flexibility--to the lowest-performing campuses and districts. It is expected to boost overall federal spending on education by about $4 billion. The Los Angeles Unified School District as a whole, congressional aides estimate, could receive as much as a 35% boost in Title 1 funds, the federal program serving the disadvantaged.

Congressional aides stress that school districts will have more discretion in how they spend that money. That, combined with the focus on results, will greatly increase the chances that schools will succeed, they say.

In the 34 states that have limited testing, the bill promises to bring substantial change. But because California is in front of the legislation, the consequences here are not likely to be profound.

“We’re already on the track that the bill asks for, which is testing and consequences for performance,” said Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer. But he added that the district could use more money for training teachers, and more schools to ease crowding.

“If they don’t fund [the federal bill] and they keep the mandates, we won’t be able to deliver,” Romer said.

In California, the percentage of teachers in public schools who are uncredentialed has risen in recent years to 14%. A disproportionate share of those teachers work in schools serving the neediest students.

The federal law addresses this problem--requiring that every teacher serving low-income children become “highly qualified” within four years.

But meeting that challenge will be tough. And it is just one of many challenges facing principals such as Francisco Gonzales at 118th Street Elementary School near Watts.

Gonzales took over the campus 2 1/2 years ago, finding a school where the roof leaked, classrooms lacked furniture and the walls were covered with graffiti.

The district pegged the campus as one of the “100 worst” schools in Los Angeles. At the time, just 3% of its fourth-graders scored at or above the national average in reading on the Stanford 9 exam.

Now the school’s leaky roof has been fixed. Classrooms have new furniture. Murals have replaced graffiti outside the school. And Gonzales has assembled a stable corps of teachers.

Test scores are improving. More than 40% of 118th Street’s third-graders reached the national average in math on last spring’s Stanford 9 exam.

Still, the mandate for 100% proficiency, Gonzalez said, is “ridiculous.”

“We know realistically that, no matter how much work we do in the schools and classrooms, some kids are not going to make it,” Gonzales said.

“Even in the best school districts, like Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes, they have students who fail for various reasons. But we should still be 100% committed to reaching the goal.”

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Bill’s Key Components

Details of the education bill that won final congressional approval Tuesday:

l Requires annual state tests in reading and math for every child in grades three through eight, starting no later than in the 2005-2006 school year. Schools whose scores fail to improve two years in a row could receive more federal aid. If scores still fail to improve, low-income students would be eligible for tutoring or transportation to another public school at federal expense.

* A school in which scores fail to improve over five straight years could have staff changes or other major consequences, such as state takeover or conversion to a charter school.

* Authorizes $26.4 billion for the 2002 budget year, which began Oct. 1, for K-12 education. That is about $8 billion more than the year before.

* Requires schools to improve student proficiency in reading and math in the next 12 years.

* Requires schools to test students with limited English skills to ensure they are proficient in English after three consecutive years of attending school in the United States.

* Requires states to submit plans to have all teachers qualified in their subject areas within four years. States could require teachers to pass subject tests or major in their field in college.

* Provides aid to build new charter schools and help existing ones.

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Source: Times staff and wire reports