Awards Will Motivate Students in Future Tests, Principals Say

Area principals viewed a round of bonuses awarded to schools Wednesday as rewards for test-score improvement but also as motivators for students who will endure another battery of achievement tests in April. Because of that, principals said, schools need to receive their bonuses soon so students see what their hard work can deliver: new computers, textbooks, televisions and even trees to shade their campuses.

“They need to see how important it is to be successful on this upcoming test,” said Chatsworth High School Principal Dan Wyatt, whose school will receive $185,082 for meeting a test-score goal set by the state. “In years past, [students] may have said, ‘What good is it to me?’ and now they’re going to see the benefits of it.”

Schools have known since last fall whether they qualified for the first-ever Governor’s Performance Awards, but they did not learn their share of the $227-million pot until Wednesday. About two-thirds of California’s public schools, or 4,502, qualified for the bonuses, by improving to the state’s satisfaction on the 2000 Academic Performance Index. The API is derived from a school’s scores on the basic skills test known as the Stanford 9.

Beginning next week, elementary schools will receive, on average, $39,470, middle schools $56,297 and high schools $98,470. Each school’s award was determined not by the size of its test-score gains--provided it met its state-imposed goal--but on its enrollment. Schools were expecting to receive $150 per student, but because so many hit their targets, they will get $63 for every student.

That was good enough for Principal Ronald Frydman, whose school, Robert Frost Middle in Chatsworth, earned $102,577. Without such bonus programs, Frydman said, “I’d have to be on the street with my tin cup.”

The taxpayer-funded bonuses carry virtually no restrictions, so Frost can spend some of its award on math books and extra air conditioning for its computer labs while Saugus High might put part of its $139,746 award toward benches or a campus store. “There are all sorts of ideas and although the money sounds like it’s big money . . . it certainly won’t take care of all the needs on the list,” said Saugus High Principal Cheryl Brown.

Brown plans to hang “thanks to the students” banners around new equipment and refurbished facilities on campus to show her students how their efforts on the 2000 Stanford 9 paid off. Without that motivation, she said, they may not do as well this spring.

“That’s just human nature,” she said. “We always say [the test] is important and you can only say that so many times.”

Diane Von Buelow, principal of Stevenson Ranch Elementary, will wait to explain to her students what the school’s $89,787 award means until she has something to show for it. Computers and science lab equipment are possibilities.

“I want them to feel some real ownership of our school because of their hard work,” she said.

Schools that did not qualify for this round of performance awards did not necessarily do poorly on the test. At El Camino Real High in Woodland Hills, for example, the school’s overall API score surpassed its target, ranking it among the state’s top senior highs, but scores slid among the schools 400 black and disadvantaged students. Schools had to show gains among all student groups to qualify.

“We fell short and we’re accepting the challenge to make sure that every student who goes here . . . [that] we raise their score, too,” said El Camino Principal Ron Bauer, whose school lost out on about $220,000.

Two more rounds of awards from Gov. Gray Davis’ school accountability program will be doled out this spring or early summer. Teachers, administrators and other school staff will divide $450 million, with some receiving paycheck bonuses of $25,000.