Dual sanctions waste energy, resources

California schools have more students living in poverty, more English language learners, more crowded classrooms and less money to spend on students than any other state in the nation. And now California's schools have a new distinction: they also face more sanctions - from more different sources - than most other states.

Four programs - two state and two federal - are prepared to intervene if schools don't measure up, and 734 schools are participating in two or more of them. Thirty schools are in three programs, and 17 are in all four.

The programs offer varying degrees of intervention, but all can invoke the ultimate sanction of either school closure or a state takeover if schools fail to meet growth targets based on standardized tests.

Schools participating in more than one intervention program may be getting conflicting messages, according to California's Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO). In addition to implementing different sets of interventions or moving from one to another in rapid succession, "state requirements for each program have changed from year to year, making it difficult for school districts to keep track of what is required."

While some dismiss the threat of stringent sanctions as a "paper tiger," others are convinced the tiger may very well have teeth.

Stringent sanctions are already in motion in some places. Five administrators at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster were ousted after the California Department of Education auditors delivered their findings and suggested corrective actions for the school, which is one of 24 schools facing sanctions under the state's Immediate Intervention/ Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP).

Elsewhere, schools are already involuntarily reassigning staff.

Just the threat of sanctions was enough to convince the Sacramento school board to close Sacramento High School and reopen it as a charter school to pre-empt a state takeover.

"Eventually, some II/USP schools are going to be taken over by the state of California," predicts Fred Tempes, director of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program for WestEd, a nonprofit research, development and service agency that serves as a regional educational laboratory. Tempes is working with six II/USP schools facing sanctions.

"Perhaps they will be governed by a university or a for-profit company. Who knows? But we have a system of sanctions and my prediction is that the state will sanction some of the schools that are doing poorly just to prove it means business."

There are four intervention programs for California schools:

The Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP) - The California program works with schools ranking in the bottom half on the Academic Performance Index (API) and not meeting targets for improvement. Schools "volunteer" for the program. Currently, there are 1,288 II/USP schools. Because of budget contraints, no new ones will be added.

CTA opposed passage of the Public School Accountability Act, which created the II/USP, on the grounds that punishing teachers is not the way to improve student achievement.

Under the program, the state Board of Education can impose sanctions, such as removing the principal and staff, converting the school into a charter, or approving a state takeover as a last resort.

Now, with the passage of Assembly Bill 312, schools facing sanctions have another chance to meet their growth targets before more stringent sanctions come into play. They enter into a contract with a School Assistance and Intervention Team (SAIT) for an intensive effort to find out what's not working and fix it.

The board required the first cohort of II/USP schools facing sanctions to enter into contracts with SAIT auditors. Auditors went to the 24 schools, which entered the program in 1999, to observe and interview school site staff last year, then issued verbal and written assessments of their problems. Follow-up visits will be conducted this year. Interventions must be narrowly focused on the problems that got the schools into the auditing process in the first place (English-language arts and math).

The schools are eligible for SAIT funding of up to $75,000 for elementary and middle schools and $100,000 for high schools ($200 per student). Districts are required to come up with matching funds. Additional funding up to $125,000 is available.

Schools that do not meet growth targets but show significant growth will receive an extra year of funding. Schools that do not meet growth targets and do not show significant growth will be designated "state-monitored" schools and will be subject to more stringent sanctions, including a possible state takeover.

An estimated 76 additional II/USP schools are slated for SAIT intervention this school year, bringing the number to 100. The state's LAO estimates the number will increase to 230 in 2004-05 and 330 in 2005-06.

The High Priority Schools Grant Program (HPSGP) - CTA-supported legislation, AB 961, created the state's High Priority Schools Grant Program, which provides extra resources to Schools of Greatest Need - those ranked in the first or second deciles of the API. The program makes $50,000 planning grants available through a voluntary program. The 630 schools currently in the program - plus another 56 whose designation was approved recently - also receive $400 per pupil to implement the action plans.

It is estimated that the $200 million allocated for the program over a four-year period will cover about 80 percent of Decile 1 schools in California.

The first 630 HPSGP schools began their planning phase in the spring of 2002 and started implementing their ideas in 2002-03. If there is no improvement in test scores after the third implementation year, interventions will kick in.

Program Improvement (PI) - The newest reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, also known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) creates another set of hurdles.

Title I schools that do not make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) two years in a row are placed in the "school improvement" category, which requires them to:

• Prepare two-year improvement plans;
• Use 10 percent or more of Title I funds for professional development;
• Provide public school choice and pay transportation costs for students to attend schools of their choice within the same district;
• Use Title I funds to pay for supplemental tutoring services, which may include private companies, nonprofit agencies or faith-based or religious organizations.

Schools that fail to make AYP after two years will be placed in the "corrective action" category and must continue to offer public school choice and supplemental services. Interventions include:

• Implementing new curriculum;
• Decreasing local decision-making;
• Extending the school day or year;
• Replacing staff "relevant to failure";
• Closing a school and reopening it as a charter;
• Turning the school over to a private company;
• Letting the state take over the school.

Because the program is so new, the more stringent sanctions have not yet kicked in. However, there are two cohorts of schools already in the early stages of "corrective action" because they had started the intervention process in an earlier version of the program [see CSRD section below].

Although the federal date for all students to become proficient is not until 2013-14, the number of schools entering Program Improvement will increase rapidly starting in 2007-08. Half of all California schools failed to make AYP this year. Toward the end of the 12-year timeline, the LAO predicts "virtually every Title I school will be in Program Improvement."

Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) - Under this federal project, 8,600 Title I schools (1,009 in California) have been singled out as failing to show improvement over two consecutive years on a school improvement program set in motion by the 1994 reauthorization of the ESEA. Auditors have visited many of the schools, 195 of which have been deemed eligible for grant money ($200 per pupil for three years). Reform efforts required by the federal government must be "research-based."

At many of the 195 schools, sanctions have already been put into effect.

In addition, under newly passed ESEA guidelines, CSRD schools have had to notify parents that they have the option to transfer their children to higher-performing schools within the same district - with the district paying for transportation costs. Schools must also pay for students to receive "supplemental services" upon request, including after-school tutoring from state-approved entities, which can include approved school districts, private companies, nonprofit agencies and faith-based organizations. How to implement such costly programs in the face of California's worst budget crisis in history is causing a lot of concern.

CSRD schools are generally integrated into state programs as well.

Competing requirements

As existing cohorts move through the state process and implement the requirements of the new federal legislation, "the state will be funding multiple interventions at the same school," warns the state's legislative analyst. In addition, the cost of sanctions for the state programs "will rapidly increase as more cohorts reach the sanction phase."

There are differing assumptions about who will pay for the implementation, according to the LAO report.

"The state's intervention programs are grounded in the assumption that additional financial resources are necessary for school improvement, while [the federal government] assumes that existing state and federal resources will be used more efficiently to support reform efforts."

Adding to the schizophrenic atmosphere are questions about who will be held responsible for a school's problems. Focusing interventions at the school site instead of at the district is a mistake, notes the LAO report, since decisions made at the district level may have caused a school to do poorly. "School districts make key funding and management decisions for schools and should be the main entities the state holds accountable."

As for sanctions, giving the state the option to take over schools "creates incentives for school districts to abdicate responsibility" for their improvement since the district will not be held accountable, according to the LAO report.

The report calls for an "integrated accountability system" and says - in a huge understatement - that it will be "a complicated and detailed undertaking."

Other recommendations in the report include:

• Target state interventions at the neediest schools - those in the first decile.
• Provide less intensive interventions at higher-performing schools.
• Redesign the HPSGP to serve both state and federal purposes.

"We definitely need to move toward a unitary system so people understand the rules," says Tempes. "Dual sanctions are wasted energy and wasted resources.

"Hopefully, we can have a single system that people understand, instead of spending all our time trying to figure things out. Then we can get back to the real work - improving education."