Schools Serving the Poor Miss Goals

As California prepares to identify schools next month that are failing to raise students’ test scores enough, state education officials on Thursday offered a preview: 78% of the state’s 4,528 schools serving low-income children failed to meet last year’s goals in English and mathematics.

According to federal law, schools that miss their targets two years in a row and receive federal funds for serving low-income children must offer students the chance of transferring to better campuses in the fall.

That list of schools will be announced next month along with test results for 2003.

Schools were required to offer such transfers last fall, but officials say few parents took advantage of the option and overcrowded school districts contend they had little room for such movement.

Schools that continue to falter in subsequent years must offer their students outside tutoring services and can face state takeovers.

“These results tell us what we expected to hear,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said in a statement. “I am truly concerned with the outcome, but it only strengthens my resolve to focus on California’s ongoing educational improvement efforts.”

Under the national No Child Left Behind Act, schools must consistently increase the percentage of students proficient in English-language arts and math until 100% reach that level by the 2013-14 school year.

States are allowed to set their own annual targets for meeting the proficiency requirement.

In California, education officials have decided that at least 13.6% of elementary and middle school students must be proficient in English-language arts this year; 16% must be proficient in math.

At the high school level, the figures are 11.2% for English-language arts and 9.6% in math.

Also, at least 95% of students in each school must take the tests.

All the criteria add up to a daunting challenge. Last year, 37.2% of all elementary schools and 19.7% of middle schools and high schools statewide met all of the goals.

The rates for Title I schools, which serve predominantly low-income students, were lower: 25.5% of the elementary campuses, 10.1% of middle schools and 12.6% of high schools hit their targets.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest school system, 19.4% of students overall in 2002 were proficient in English-language arts, as were 21.9% in math. Special education students missed the marks by wide margins.

“It will be a challenge,” Assistant Supt. Esther Wong said.

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Times staff writer Cara Mia DiMassa contributed to this report.