29 county schools miss U.S. standards

Despite overall gains in state test scores, more Sonoma County schools than ever have failed to meet federal accountability standards set out in the No Child Left Behind law.

The county now has 29 schools in program improvement status for failing to meet annual federal progress targets -- there were 27 last year.

Mendocino and Lake counties have 19 and four schools in program improvement, respectively.

Because this year marks the beginning of steadily increasing requirements in the federal program, educators said schools that missed the mark will struggle to avoid sanctions in coming years. And they likely will be joined by more and more schools deemed underperforming.

"We know that if you are not over the bar now, it's going to be very, very difficult for schools to get over that bar," state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell said when he released the scores Thursday.

Both the state Academic Performance Index and federal Adequate Yearly Progress status are derived from the Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, program that tests students in the spring.

Schools that miss federal targets in any one of about 20 categories -- the precise number depending on the grade level -- for two consecutive years enter program improvement and face sanctions that include allowing students to transfer to higher-performing schools, the dismissal of staff or reformatting into charter schools.

In addition to the 29 Sonoma County campuses in program improvement, 16 others failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress targets, so they risk entering program improvement next year. Four schools were added to the program this year, but two schools under sanctions raised their scores enough to get out.

The increase in schools facing potential sanctions did not surprise county educators.

This year marked a steep increase in the number of students required to score proficient or advanced in math and English under No Child Left Behind requirements.

The bar for proficiency went up about 11 percent and will continue to do so each year until 2014, when 100 percent of students are expected to score proficient or advanced.

Only schools that receive federal Title 1 funding, which supports programs for low-income students, are vulnerable to program improvement status.

O'Connell said more than 2,200 schools statewide are in program improvement -- 342 of them for the fifth year -- and 266 others are being identified for program improvement if they don't meet next year's threshold.

"Fifty-two percent of all schools met AYP, which is a decrease of 15 percent from last year," O'Connell said.

Stating a goal doesn't make it automatically achievable, said Dave Geck, Lake County superintendent of schools.

"No one I know of ever expects us to get to the point where 100 percent of students are either proficient or advanced," he said. "I think everybody is focused on trying to move everybody as much as they can."

Geck and Tim Gill, Lake County's director of curriculum and instruction, pointed to Pomo Elementary School in Clearlake, where students boosted their state Academic Performance Index score by 46 points but still missed federal targets and moved into a fifth year of sanctions.

"We have two accountability systems that reward students for different types of performance," Gill said.

API scores range from 200 to 1,000, and California has set its overall goal at 800.

In Santa Rosa, Bellevue Elementary School students increased their API score from 671 to 702 and met 16 of 17 federal targets. However, Bellevue remains in program improvement because 26 percent of its English-learners scored proficient or advanced in language arts, short of the federal goal of 35 percent.

But Principal John Eberly remained upbeat Thursday.

"This is very achievable," he said. "I'm really proud of what the staff has done."

Santa Rosa's Burbank Elementary School bucked the trend and exited program improvement by meeting all 17 of the required testing goals. Laguna High School in Sebastopol, a continuation school, also moved out of program improvement.

Burbank's API score jumped 26 points to 781 -- tantalizingly close to the 800 goal, said Principal Patricia Turner.

Despite the steep incline in target scores over the next few years, Turner isn't concerned the school will return to program improvement.

"If we keep up what we are doing and polish and refine many aspects of what we are doing, we're there," she said. "We'll hit it."

News Researcher Teresa Meikle and Staff Writer Robert Digitale contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.