Federal designation is mixed message

Eventually, critics say, the compounding growth targets will make it virtually impossible for even the best schools to keep up, pushing them, too, into program improvement status.

“I think we can look down the road and we can see a very high percentage of our schools in the state are going to be in program improvement when you are having to make 11-point jumps every year,” said Bobbie Kavanaugh, principal of McKinley Elementary School in Burbank, which slipped into the category this year despite a 16-point jump in its API score.

Accountability is important, said Burbank Unified school board President Ted Bunch, adding the he wants to see scores trending upward. But the pace of growth demanded by the No Child Left Behind Act is unsustainable, he added.

“It is a federal law and I cannot not give weight to a federal law,” Bunch said. “We have no choice, we have to do everything we can to meet their criteria. But there is just coming a place where very few school districts in the nation will be able to meet that criteria.”

Lynn Marso, principal at Roosevelt Middle School in Glendale, said that she feels strongly that her school is effectively addressing the achievement gap that has plagued Latino students. The school-wide API score climbed eight points to 793, and each one of its significant subgroups posted API gains of five points or more.

Roosevelt is now entering its third year of program improvement.

“I would say on a daily basis, whether we are or not in program improvement, we are going to continue to do our jobs with the passion that we do every day,” Marso said.