Districts to vie for $2.9 billion to aid troubled schools

School districts will have seven weeks to vie for a share of $2.9 billion that will pay for smaller classes, high school counselors, teacher training and other initiatives.

State education officials and the California Teachers Assn. hailed the program, which will benefit 500 selected low-achieving California schools.

“This is not the panacea, but this is a significant, targeted, strategic investment,” Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, said at a Monday news conference. “We’re trying to clearly help the most challenging schools. This is a commitment by the state to close the achievement gap.”

Some critics called the plan overly prescriptive; others said the reforms demanded too little of schools.

The money comes from the settlement of a lawsuit filed by O’Connell and the CTA against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for allegedly breaking a funding pledge.

“The lawsuit was a difficult thing for all of us, but real good has come out of it,” said Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Assn.

The new seven-year effort is among several initiatives aimed at closing the performance gap that separates whites and Asians from blacks and Latinos. That gap has not shrunk despite overall school improvement. About a third of some 1,500 low-scoring schools will receive an infusion of $500 per year per student for elementary schools, $900 per student at middle schools and $1,000 at high schools.

The centerpiece is a stipulation that limits a class to 25 students.

“I’ve visited so many schools where the children are literally crammed into the classroom,” Kerr said. “We know class-size reduction is the best reform around.”

Research has not entirely settled that point, but smaller classes are popular with parents, teachers and students. California keeps classes at a 20-to-1 student-teacher ratio for kindergarten through third grade. There also are smaller classes for ninth-grade English, and individual school systems, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, have targeted other grades or subjects. This sweeping plan would apply to all elementary grades and all core academic classes in upper grades.

The state’s improvement targets for participating schools will remain essentially unchanged from the present, which displeased Jim Lanich, an education researcher who heads California Business for Education Excellence.

“Schools are doing what we’re asking them to do, but we’re not asking them to do much,” he said. “This is more of the same.”

L.A. school board member David Tokofsky called the funding “good pork for Los Angeles,” but added, “This is money owed to school districts statewide that will be turned over to 30% of the lowest performing schools, without any public discussion, and without any clear sanctions if they don’t improve. This is money that otherwise goes into programs for kids and pay raises for teachers, which could have been determined locally.”

L.A. Unified hopes to obtain funding for about 80 schools, out of 230 that are eligible. Campuses without space to reduce class size will apply for a limited pool of funds without that restriction.

“The requirements are pretty detailed, without much flexibility,” said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn. Such restrictions might not match a district’s “internal analysis of what is most necessary to help the kids.”

The reform plan, with an application deadline of March 30, also would set student-to-counselor ratios for participating campuses at 300 to 1.

In Los Angeles middle schools, this year, the ratio is as high as 1,100 to 1; in high schools, up to 799 to 1. Recent new state funding is expected to cut those ratios in about half even without the settlement money.

With luck, the money could become a down payment on permanent, more widespread school support, said Margie Granado, president of the Montebello Teachers Assn. “I’m praying this extra money will make a difference, so that people will see that.”

howard.blume@latimes.com