State's rankings of low-achieving schools criticized
A preliminary list of 1,000 schools in California — including nine in Yuba-Sutter — that legislation describes as the lowest achieving in the state is flawed, local officials say.
"Our test scores have gone up every single year," said Staci Kaelin, principal of Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, among local schools on the list.
The California Department of Education, which prepared the list, said the document represents open-enrollment schools where transfer rules will be eased to allow students to attend other schools with higher state test scores.
No single school district in California can have more than 10 percent of its schools on the new list — a criteria that skews the document, said Marysville Joint Unified School District Trustee Bernie Rechs. A few schools in the state with Academic Performance Index test scores of 800, the California Department of Education goal, are on the list of 1,000 schools, which Rechs said makes no sense,
"Eight hundred is such a high standard," he said.
Brittan Elementary's API score is 789, Kaelin said.
Yuba City Unified Superintendent Nancy Aaberg voiced surprise that Park Avenue and King Avenue schools are on the list provided this month to the State Board of Education.
No Yuba City Unified schools were on a separate list the state released in March of persistently low-achieving schools in California.
Aaberg said the school district is prepared to identify issues at the two schools and improve.
"We tackle anything we're given, she added. "We'll tackle this."
Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, said state legislation spurred the list and that its criteria "did create some interesting phenomena."
"We recognize there's some irony," McLean said of schools meeting the 800 score threshold and still being included on the state list. "We are following the law."
The state Board of Education approved new transfer rules for the 1,000 listed schools that no longer rely on policies that vary among school districts in California, McLean said.
New measures mean that a school district must allow a student to leave and enroll in a school with a higher API score wherever that school is located in California, McLean said. Issues such as the new school being at capacity or additional enrollment affecting classroom size reduction could restrict transfers to a school, she added.
Rechs said he was surprised to see Yuba Feather Elementary on the state list, a document he believes reflects the undue emphasis on state tests students take.
The former school teacher appeared in May before the state Board of Education to ask that the current yearly statewide student testing system be discontinued — at least until California balances its budget.
A student's grades are a much better indication of success in college than state and federal tests, Rechs said.
He also questioned testing standards that he said mention 19 times the political tactics known as McCarthyism and refer 17 times to the Ku Klux Klan — but omit Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers.
The testing standards, Rechs said, limit teachers to what's been called "a distorted version of the American past, a story of oppression and failure."
YUBA-SUTTER SCHOOLS ON LIST
Park Avenue
King Avenue
Ella Elementary
Abraham Lincoln
Yuba Feather Elementary
Sutter County Office of Education (special ed)
Luther Elementary
Marcum-Illinois Union Elementary
CONTACT Ryan McCarthy at 749—4707 or rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com Brittan Elementary
