Alvarado API Scores Continue to Climb

The annual API, Academic Performance Index, results, released on September 15th 2010, by the California Department of Education, are scores of between 200 and 1,000 assigned to all schools and districts in the state, based on the results of standardized tests taken each spring. A minimum score of 680 is required to meet federal accountability guidelines, and the state’s goal is 800. Alvarado made a 9 point gain with a score of 835 over last years 826.

However Alvarado will be in Program Improvement due to the scores of one subgroup who did not met the required minimum score. All schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) that do not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) are identified for Program Improvement (PI) under the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The ESEA is also known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act which was signed in 2001. This act required states to come up with their own performance testing, thus the API. The Federal part is AYP to make sure that disadvantaged students namely Title I students received an ever improving education. In California, PI is the formal designation for Title I-funded schools and districts that fail to make AYP for two consecutive years. At Alvarado the subgroup that failed this year is not the same subgroup that failed last year, but it still puts Alvarado in Program Improvement. Alvarado will be required to institute programs and policies to improve their scores.

The ESEA (NCLB) requires all states to implement statewide accountability systems based on challenging state standards in reading and mathematics, annual testing for all students in grades three through eight, and annual statewide progress objectives ensuring that all groups of students reach proficiency within 12 years. Assessment results are disaggregated by socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, disability, and limited English proficiency to ensure that no group is left behind (NCLB). Districts and schools that fail to make AYP toward statewide proficiency goals are subject to improvement and corrective action measures. Keep in mind that only schools which receive federal funding, Title I schools, are subject to Program Improvement. Public schools and charter schools who do not receive federal funding are not in danger of going into Program Improvement even if they do not make their required AYP.

Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch is a look at many attempts to make the public school system work for all students. She is a former Assistant Secretary of Education and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. This is a scholarly work with statistics to back up her change of heart from Choice to support for the neighborhood public school. "With so much money and power aligned against the neighborhood school and against education as a profession, public education itself is placed at risk." She makes the point that community schools allow the public to engage in discussions with their neighbors which is the very basis of our democracy. She defines how charter schools, testing, and the business of education has become a cottage industry in the United States. Often it's about making money, not about what is best for children and their schools. The history of Alvarado Elementary, as shown on this blog, clearly shows it is a long standing community school.

After retiring from 25 years of teaching, I am well aware there were many programs developed to improve students academic success. Here are some of the programs, often thought of as "silver bullets", designed to lead to superior student success that I have seen, personally used, or participated in developing. Some of these were in other districts and I am sure there are many more programs. Some are a renamed combination of strategies. Some of these address the big picture such as Strategic Planning; some address what happens in the classroom, basic teaching strategies; and some address both, such as No Child Left Behind.

*Split reading
*Phonics only
*Clusters
*Open Court
*Sullivan reading
*Plan, Do, Review
*KWLH charts
*Whole Language
*Sheltered English
*Interactive Writing
*Terry Johnson Strategies
*CELL California Early Literacy Learning
*California Literature Project *S.T.A.R.S.S. Successful Teaching of Academic Reading to Struggling Students*Just in Time Teaching
*Rebecca Sitton Spelling
*ExLL Extended Literacy Learning
*IBM Writing to Read - Technology Based
*Reciprocal Teaching
*Word Wall - Glad, Clad, Cell
*GLAD
*Non Fiction Matters
*Read Naturally
*Grouping, Non Grouping,
*Tracking, Non Tracking
*Differentiated Instruction
*Buddy Systems-student and teacher
*Conflict Resolution
*Best Practices
*Power Standards
*Strategies That Work
*Technology Based (Road Ahead Grant)
*Literacy Coaching
*Scaffolding
*Learning Walks
*Writers Workshop
*Character Education
*Reading Recovery
*Balanced Literacy
*Intervention: Before, After, and During School (pull-out)
*Strategic Planning
*Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Collaboration
*Data Driven Instruction, testing
*No Child Left Behind (NCLB)- testing, testing, testing
*Critical Literacy
*Human System Dynamics
*Targeted Instruction
*Race to the Top (Grant)

Some of these ideas are from for profit companies who have sold a bill of goods to superintendents, and they in turn have sold the bill of goods to their school boards. Many of these ideas are about making money for a company. Some work exceedingly well, but they are often limited by the number of children with access to the program or even the materials. Teachers pay a high price in time spent exploring these options after school, in the evening, or even in the summer. Often in the next few years they are dumped for new strategies. Then teachers are off learning new techniques spending more hours and hours in training or in meetings at the district office. The good part is experienced teachers have an arsenal of strategies to pull out when needed. The bad part is good teachers get frustrated with the system and leave teaching. There is only one thing certain about schools and that is "constant change".

Probably the most useful to teachers and students is intervention, which could be in the classroom or Read Naturally or Reading Recovery, and voluntary PLC's. Required PLC's often do not work unless there is a very cohesive staff in most grade levels. If all these worked all the time on all the students, we wouldn't have to have NCLB. The principal's eye needs to be always on the prize. The prize being all children reading on or above grade level. The best people need to be hand picked to do the best job whether it's classroom teaching or some type of intervention. I have seen very experienced and well trained aides successfully teach intervention outside of the classroom. Those aides were very disciplined, allowed no excuses for work not done or lack of effort expended by the students, and worked well as a team. Since little effort is spent training aides this is rare. Usually it is the classroom teacher who has the skill and the discipline, and that skill is not easily replicated. Districts are always trying to replicate good teaching. Can it be done effectively? Each teacher is so unique. It is only each teacher's skill at that time, in that place, with a particular child that makes a child successful. It's what the teacher knows and how they use it to spin it to each child's best advantage. It's one child and one teacher, one on one.Charter schools, poverty, and disenfranchisement, which includes drug use, are premier issues facing the public school system. Diane Ravitch's book is an attempt to look at what has happened in the past and what should happen in future to save the American public school system. Ravitch does not support President Obama's education agenda for merit pay plans. According to her, "test-based accountability removes all responsibility from students and their families for students academic performance". She is not against private schools or even Charter schools. She is against taking parental support, motivated students, and funding away from public schools. She also examines the success rate of the business or army model used by foundations, such as the Gates foundation, and adapted by some charter schools.

Her last chapter is titled, "Lessons Learned" where she explores options for public schools. This chapter relates how generations of immigrants have adjusted to the American way of life through participation in the free public school system. Teachers and staff have seen this on a daily basis at Alvarado. She believes we should establish a general national curriculum which includes the liberal arts, sciences, physical education, and the social behaviors and skills that make learning possible. When schools are in trouble, then whatever needs to be done to correct the problem needs to be done and it might be different from school to school from community to community.

The author's challenges parents, teachers, and students to go to their law makers. On National Public Radio she recommended these groups go to their congressmen, even naming George Miller, a powerful voice on the education committee from Contra Costa County, as one who knows little about what really goes on in public schools. Her final conclusion is that it's all about good teachers and good principals. Teachers and principals with experience, knowledge, and empathy. That's the magic.

2002 No Child Left Behind

No Child Left Behind is Federal Legislation aimed at standards-based education reform. Here is a simplified list of requirements for meeting the governments standards so that schools can receive federal funding.

Annual testing. By the 2005-06 school year, states must begin testing students in grades 3-8 annually in reading and mathematics. By 2007-08, they must also test students in science at least once.

Academic progress. States must bring all students up to the "proficient" level on state tests by the 2013-14 school year.

Report cards. Starting with the 2002-03 school year, states must furnish annual report cards showing a range of information, including student-achievement data broken down by subgroup.

Teacher qualifications. By the end of the 2005-06 school year, every teacher in core content areas working in a public school must be "highly qualified" in each subject he or she teaches.

Reading First. The act creates a new competitive-grant program called Reading First, funded at $1.02 billion in 2004, to help states and districts set up "scientific, research-based" reading programs for children in grades K-3 (with priority given to high-poverty areas).

Funding changes. Through an alteration in the Title I funding formula, the No Child Left Behind Act is expected to better target resources to school districts with high concentrations of poor children.

2000 - 2003 New Principal & NCLB

In 2000 - 2001 Mike Guevara was principal and Susan Fivelstad was assistant principal. Susan had previously been our reading specialist. The following year Mike was assigned to go to the the newly built Delaine Eastin Elementary school. Susan retired. In Sept of 2001 Karen Saucedo joined us as our principal. Holly Scroggins who had taken Susan's place as the reading specialist was selected to be the new assistant principal. Cheri Benafield was now the reading specialist. Karen and Holly had many years of experience in education. Holly had been a classroom teacher, a science specialist, and a reading specialist at AE. Karen was a professional educator through and through. Coming from a middle school environment to elementary was a change. She was totally dedicated, had definite ideas of how things should be run, and was a whiz with the budget. She was woman with heart, grit, and was surprisingly a little shy. Holly and Karen made a good team as they were both well organized and hard workers. They were the Dynamic Duo.

On Jan 8, 2002 George Bush signed the No Child Left Behind bill which soon became known as "nicklebee". The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. Sounds simple, but the people at the district office and principals now had to figure out the necessary processes to meet the challenge.

2002-2003 Staff

Karen Saucedo principal

Holly Scroggins assistant principal

Click on the photo to enlarge