Feds find California identified too few Program Improvement districts 

The U.S. Department of Education has notified California that its criteria for identifying Program Improvement schools and districts are unacceptable and is requiring the state Board of Education to take action to immediately identify possibly hundreds more districts.

The department’s report, dated Dec. 10 and received by the California Department of Education Dec. 20, gives the Board just 30 business days to act on several “findings.” It was unclear from the Department’s correspondence when the 30-day period would end.

California allows some special education students to take standards-based tests at another grade level as specified in their Individual Education Program and counts them as participating but not proficient; the U.S. DOE found this unacceptable and said those students cannot be counted as participants for purposes of making “adequate yearly progress.” Another of the Department’s findings disallows using a minimum score on the Academic Performance Index to help identify districts for Program Improvement, and another finding criticizes the state’s lack of guidance and assistance for helping paraprofessionals obtain the required level of education.

Without the use of a minimum API score as a secondary factor for making a determination of Program Improvement status, another 350 districts could enter program improvement this year, versus the 14 now identified. Currently, if a district’s collective proficiency totals show it fails to make AYP but the API of its socio-economically disadvantaged students is 560 or above, the district would not be identified for program improvement. The U.S. DOE found that practice violates the No Child Left Behind Act and required the state to take action to “redress the misidentification of districts in improvement,” or risk losing its Title I funds.

At its Jan. 12 meeting, the state Board took no specific action, and agreed to contact the department to discuss the problems it would create to identify more districts now.

Related links:

• See Item 9 of the Board’s agenda “Assistance available for Program Improvement districts”