Comments on: API and NCLB, all over again

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:02:00 +0000

I looked again at the state website, and I believe I was reading it incorrectly. The words “first year PI implementation” are followed by a colon. They do not mean that the school is in the first year of PI. If the school was in PI it would have a date after the colon. Apparently San Leandro High is not considered a Title One school, so it will not enter Program Improvement regardless of its test scores.
San Leandro High has failed to meet its AYP for several years, so it would be in PI if it were a Title One school. A Title One school enters PI if it fails to meet any of its AYP targets for two years in a row.
I hope this is helpful to you. I learned something researching it.

By: Jerry Heverly

Jerry Heverly — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 03:17:24 +0000

Fascinating, Mr. Weinberg. My only confusion is that I thought San Leandro HS was in at least the third year of PI, but I could be wrong.

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:21:27 +0000

I think I know the source of confusion: There are always two Alameda County Teachers of the Year!

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:53:24 +0000

#41, the Alameda County Teacher of the Year for 2012, as reported on this website, is I’Asha Warfield from Frick Middle School in Oakland. I try very hard to never be disingenuous.
My reason for bringing it up was exactly what I said in my post, to reassure another teacher that working at a PI school no longer reflects negatively on a teacher. There was a time when schools in PI were barred from winning state and federal awards that they would have otherwise qualified for, so that might have been a real concern.

By: makeitgoaway

makeitgoaway — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:55:47 +0000

The Alameda Teacher of the Year, Chris Hansen, who was also named County Teacher of the Year, does NOT work at a school in PI. He works at Lincoln Middle School. The previous Year’s TOY works at a continuation high school, so it is somewhat disingenuous to suggest that they are in PI. And what would that prove anyway?

I assume your point is that teachers at struggling schools are often the most innovative because they have to be. But it is much more likely as you listed in your post, that they are weighed down and overcome by rules and regulations, silly and repetitive suggestions by consultants, and constantly changing adminstrators, thus frustrating and finally forcing them into being mindless Ed robots. Innovation is one of the hardest things to do in education. The nail that stands up gets hammered.

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:49:13 +0000

Jerry Heverly, I’ve enjoyed reading your postings on your “Entirely Secondary” blog. I can see that you are a dedicated teacher and serious about the implications of various programs on your students, so I will answer your questions in some detail.
The teachers who have reported that being in Program Improvement meant very little to them at their sites are right, but you are also correct that there must be more to it than that.
The school I worked at from 2000-2009 was one of the first middle schools to go into Program Improvement. We went into Program Improvement 5 (where the state stops counting) so long ago I am not sure what year it was. We went through all the elements of PI that are listed in the link that Sharon provided. Some were a waste of time and money, some were only bureaucratic paperwork, and some made it harder to provide the education our students needed. None were earth-shaking, and many of the teachers who worked at the school during this time period would not have known which things that were taking place were part of Program Improvement and which were just the normal nonsense that the downtown administration requires.
Your school is in Year One of Program Improvement. The district is now required to send a letter to parents at your school telling them they can transfer to any school in your district that is not in PI and that has space available. Are there any such schools in your district? In Oakland some of the schools that were listed in the letter had worse scores than our school, but they were not in PI because they were newly created. I don’t think a single family took advantage of this “opportunity.”
Your district will offer you technical assistance. Perhaps they will pay an outside consultant to do this. The assistance will not be helpful. It will consist of checking off a list of practices that the California State Department of Education thought might be useful. In the years we went through the process the biggest element was “teaching the standards,” “using approved texts,” and “having a pacing guide.”
Next year you will be in Year Two. ( There is no way that you can escape PI because the requirements become so much more demanding each year.) Now some of your students will sign up for Supplemental Educational Services. A portion of your Title One money will be taken by the district to pay the providers of these tutoring services. These will be private companies that are on a state approved list. They will use various methods to recruit students and their families and collect about $1000 per student for about 40 hours of group tutoring. Every study I have seen indicates that this tutoring does no good at all, except to allow these private companies to get a paycheck. In the early years of these programs the providers offered all sorts of prizes and rewards to get students and their parents to sign up, or they tried to get teachers to work for them and recruit their own students.
In Year Three, someone will decide which of the choices under the law your school will select for Years Four and Five. It will probably be “restructuring.” The other major option, replacing the staff, is never selected unless a sizeable bribe is offered the district in the form of an increase in federal support. This program is limited to the 5% of the schools in the state that score lowest on standardized tests. San Leandro High is between the 20th and 30th percentile, so far above that cut-off point. There are several schools in Oakland and San Francisco who reconstituted their staffs and received the added funds, and the jury is still out on whether or not they make significant improvement and whether the improvement continues after the funding ceases.
During Year Three, someone will seize control of your “restructuring.” It could be an administrator at your site. It could be an administrator in your district, or it could be a consultant hired by the site or district. This plan will be carried out in Years 4 and 5, so it is important, but unless your school simultaneously qualifies for additional funding, and new plan is unlikely to have much effect on student outcomes.
You asked “How many years of PI before I am fired?” You won’t be. Indeed, PI status is not even a minor blot on a teacher’s reputation. Most people realized long ago that student tests scores are a much greater indicator of the social-economic level of the students than they are of the competence of a school or teacher. Notice that the Alameda Teacher of the Year works at a school that is PI 5+++.

By: Nontcair

Nontcair — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:05:00 +0000

You folks take this API stuff soooooo seriously.

This whole NCLB (“No Bureaucrat Left Behind”) business is all just another example of Washington keeping the People preoccupied with pedantry so that it can operate basically with impunity on its real purpose of robbing us blind.

It’s funny how many of you college educated types fall for it.

By: Gordon Danning

Gordon Danning — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:02:54 +0000

Oakland High School had to go through some sort of PI-related restructuring. Frankly, the changes were pretty minimal, focusing primarily on 9th grade, which is nice, but hardly earth-shattering. It seems that, ultimately, the law has no teeth. It is much ado about (almost) nothing.

By: Gail

Gail — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:23:16 +0000

Most schools EVERYWHERE are or soon will be in PI. Unless you live in Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average, that’s inevitable under NCLB.

By: OUSD Parent

OUSD Parent — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:05:03 +0000

Jerry, your friend has a point. I looked through the link Katy posted and most schools in OUSD are on PI. I had no idea. Nothing seems to change year after year.