By The LA Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/1Ph4Xuf
March 18, 2016
:: For the first time in 15
years, California has no real accountability system for schools. The state's
Academic Performance Index, which judged student progress mainly by test
scores, was washed away in the switch to Common Core standards, and the shape
of whatever will replace it is fuzzy. The federal government's rigid and
unrealistic Adequate Yearly Progress measurement is also nearly dead, along
with the won't-be-missed No Child Left Behind Act.
The dismantling of the API and AYP has also had a strange
effect on California's parent trigger law, a reform that was pioneered in this
state in 2010 but that has been faltering here of late. The law allows parents
at low-performing schools to force change, such as a switch to charter status
or new campus leadership, if a majority of them sign a petition. But under the
law, the trigger can be invoked only at schools that have fallen short of an
800 API and missed their AYP targets. With those measurements gone or rendered
meaningless, is the trigger dead?
That's what school districts would apparently like to
believe. Twice in the last year, trigger petitions have been rejected on the
grounds that the API scores date from several years ago. And in the more recent
case, at 20th Street Elementary School, officials with the Los Angeles Unified
School District added that the school had met its federal AYP target. (Former
Supt. John Deasy made a similar argument in 2014, but his decision was
overturned by his successor, Ramon C. Cortines.) While it is possible to look
at it that way, the reality is that during the transition period when Common
Core was being introduced, the state got permission to reduce AYP to a
meaningless number that mostly reflects insignificant factors like attendance
and test participation.
The rejection of the 20th Street effort is especially
frustrating because this is the second parent petition there. The first one,
last year, was never submitted because parents were assured that the district
would take strong measures to improve the school. Those measures fell short in
their eyes, leading to the second petition. Had the parents been hard-nosed
from the start, they'd have transformed the school by now.
But the district also has a point — the API is outdated. The
AYP doesn't measure anything useful and is about to disappear altogether.
And where is the state in all this? Why hasn't the
California Board of Education adopted interim regulations guiding parents and
schools considering using parent trigger through this foggy period? Why hasn't
the Legislature laid down the law, at least temporarily?
As flawed as the trigger law is, it provides a mechanism for
the most disenfranchised families to force school officials to listen to them.
Yes, it's a new era in accountability and that will take some time to iron out.
But in the meantime, parents in the lowest-performing schools are tired of
waiting for the latest grand policy from on high.
The Times editorial board is at their most endearing when
endorsing policy and/or candidates they admit are flawed.
The good news is that the LA Times seems to have accepted
LAUSD’s legal argument that the Parent Trigger Law does not apply anymore. Of course The Times Editorial Board is not a
panel of appellate court judges. (At
least not until President Trump takes office!)
1. California has no API/AYP test-driven measure of student/teacher/school success or progress.2. Additionally the District has a waiver from the NCLB mandate under C.O.R.E.3. And NCLB is thankfully as dead as Scrooge’s doornail.
Because the Parent Trigger Law is essentially a tool to
force schools into charterhood I think the Times is remiss in not posting their
usual take-our-word-for-it magically-unrealistic disclaimer about accepting money from foundations
that promote charters …but that doesn’t affect their editorial policy.
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