San Francisco Chronicle November 26, 2006

HEADLINE: New Strategies in Education War

GOV. ARNOLD Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature must seize the unexpected spirit of cooperation in Sacramento this year to look afresh at the crisis in California's K-12 schools.

Yes, there is a crisis. Test scores have gone up in recent years. But the distressing achievement gap that separates Latino and African American students from white and Asian students remains unchanged -- despite years of school reform and billions of dollars spent.

Nearly one-third of California's teenagers don't even graduate. Obviously, California doesn't have the choice to "cut and run" when it comes to our schools. But simply "staying the course" is also not a winning strategy. What we are doing is having some impact -- but not nearly enough.

A report issued this month by the Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE, for example, showed that schools that participated in the state's II/USP (immediate intervention/underperforming school program) "showed no advantage over similar schools that did not participate." Some schools even lost ground while in the program, according to a paper in the PACE report by Catherine Bitter and Jennifer O'Day of the American Institutes for Research.

The researchers also showed that conflicts between the state's accountability system and the one imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind law threaten the best efforts of educators. Differences between the two systems, they note, have "made the targets for student achievement growth less clear, and have somewhat diffused educators' attention as they attend to multiple targets."

They point out that the numbers of "underperforming schools" as defined by federal law will continue to rise as the proportion of students expected to perform at ever higher levels is ratcheted up. The result, say Bitter and O'Day, will be to "divert attention from schools that are truly the lowest performing and that need the most assistance."

These findings are in line with those of several other reports, including a devastating document produced by the Rand Corp. nearly two years ago, which showed that "California schools lag behind other states on almost every objective measurement."

One especially notable statistic is that fully 80 percent of students in schools labeled as "underperforming" by the state live in poverty. It should be clear by now that while schools can do a lot, they cannot do it all. Any education strategy must focus not only on what goes on in the schools, but on the conditions in which children who attend them are raised.

This fall, Schwarzenegger declared a "state of emergency" in our prisons. He should consider doing the same on behalf of our schools. At the very least, he should convene a summit of all the key education stakeholders in the state. California needs to pursue new strategies that do not undercut reforms being implemented, but which significantly enhance them.