SBE: PI districts action required, but funding absent

Instead of helping the 96 school districts that face corrective action under the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s Program Improvement requirements, the state Board of Education may have imposed yet another level of unfunded mandates on them, CSBA Assistant Executive Director Holly Jacobson charged after the board’s March 13 vote on the issue.

CSBA and other advocates for local public education had cautioned the board in extensive public testimony prior to the vote at the state Department of Education headquarters in Sacramento that the districts must be assured of adequate funding to carry out any corrective actions required.

“CSBA cannot support this … unless it is linked with funding,” Jacobson had written to SBE March 5. She cited the state Legislature’s control of $45 million in Federal Title I funds for Program Improvement districts and said that any requirements “should remain inoperative” until a bill authorizing distribution of the funds is passed and signed into law.

SBE, an 11-member panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, made several changes to the plan for PI districts proposed last month by Schwarzenegger and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell. Chief among those changes was the deletion of three words“—contingent on funding”—from the technical assistance section of the recommendation.

The move, coming after four hours of deliberations and public comment that largely focused on other aspects of the groundbreaking remedial action required under federal law, “blindsided” advocates for the local agencies, Jacobson said.

“It took the state board completely out of the fight to advocate for the state resources,” Jacobson said. “It essentially forces these local agencies to foot the bill for corrective actions imposed by a federal program that does not accurately measure academic progress or take into consideration California’s unique challenges.”

Jacobson also objected to a change concerning 38 districts that would have been required to each contract with one of the 38 District Assistance and Intervention Teams that had previously been approved by SBE. Those districts can now choose either from those DAITs or other assistance providers.

The DAITs—teams of education professionals who conduct needs assessments and make recommendations for district improvement—are to examine and evaluate existing practices at both district and school levels, identify and prioritize districts’ major areas of need, develop and implement actions that target those needs and, ultimately, help districts exit PI status.

“The board’s authority to impose a DAIT is provided by California statute. There is no authority for the board to direct districts to contract with other assistance providers. We fear that not only does this go beyond the board’s statutory authority, but it may be a way to fund the technical assistance at a level less than that which would be required for DAITs.”

Jacobson also criticized the power the intervention teams will wield, saying that it surpasses the authority even of the trustee who is to be appointed for Coachella Valley Unified School District in the most extreme corrective action. Coachella was the only district in California that accepted a 2005 Title I grant which carried stiff penalties for failure to make adequate yearly progress.

“The Board’s action requires districts that have been assigned DAITs or other intervention teams to implement any recommendations from those teams. The local governance teams lose all discretion to determine if the team’s recommendations are appropriate for the district or even affordable. This is a de facto takeover of the district by the DAITs, which violates the spirit and likely the letter of the law that created DAITs,” Jacobson said.

The corrective action plan approved by SBE establishes four “demarcations” for PI districts:

• Coachella and six other districts determined to be most in need of improvement must each have a DAIT analyze its fiscal, governance and academic policies, especially those affecting English language learners and special education students, and report back to SBE in July with recommendations for changes.
• The 38 districts that are next in priority must each have a DAIT or other approved intervention team for the same services as those to be provided to the first seven districts. The state Department of Education will develop an appeal process that districts may use to challenge the recommendations to SBE.
• Forty-four districts in the third tier of priorities for improvement must use PI instruments and technical assistance approved by SBE to analyze district needs and boost student achievement to assure compliance with NCLB.
• Seven other districts must address the reasons why they failed to make NCLB benchmarks for adequate yearly progress. The Orange County Office of Education must also address the reasons it fell short of the benchmarks.

With the SBE vote, California has emerged in the vanguard of states dealing with local education agencies at the district and county office level that are in Program Improvement. It’s an issue that every state must face, however, as NCLB’s requirements begin to tighten. There are also 2,189 individual schools in Program Improvement status in California, and thousands more nationwide.

As with districts and county offices, the schools can fail to make NCLB’s requirements for a variety of reasons, from unsatisfactory scores among racial and ethnic student subgroups on statewide achievement tests to such bureaucratic reasons as having insufficient percentages of students in all subgroups participate in the tests.

California’s 96 districts and one county office in year three of Program Improvement are the first wave in what will become a flood tide, Jacobson warned. Fifty more that are in year two this year are expected to enter year three next year, and a hundred more could follow the year after that. It takes two years of satisfactory progress to leave PI status.

Related links: