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CUSD
Moving Forward in Addressing No Child Left Behind Sanctions
In its third
year of Program Improvement, the district is required to hire a pricey
state-approved support team
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON – Required
by law to do so, the school board last week unanimously approved the
hiring of a high-priced consultant to assist the district in improving
academic achievement and exiting corrective action status under the
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
Compton Unified School District (CUSD) is considered to need “immediate
intervention and assistance” because it is currently in its third
year of Program Improvement (PI) under the federal law, meaning for
five years it has failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as
per the federal government’s standards.
Achievement Equity LLC will be paid $325,000 to assist the district
in meeting requirements set forth by the California State Board of
Education and the California Department of Education.
The firm was chosen from a list of state-certified District Assistance
and Intervention Teams (DAIT) as part of the state’s recommended
course of action, which it is required to instate under NCLB. Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack
O’Connell and Secretary of Education David Long collaborated
on the recommendations.
Achievement Equity will assess the district’s capacity relative
to fiscal and human resources, academic program and governance, especially
in its ability to serve and support its English learner and special
education populations, said CUSD Superintendent Kaye E. Burnside Ed.D.
“These folks will come in, assess the areas I’ve described
to you, and they’ll make a recommendation to the state and federal
government,” said Burnside.
Compton Unified is not alone. A total of 96 school districts and one
county office of education statewide are in PI Year 3 status and are
facing similar sanctions, according to the Department of Education.
Forty-four, including Compton, were determined to need technical assistance
to such a degree that they are required to hire a DAIT.
Compton Unified and the remaining 96 Local Education Agencies (LEA)
are also required to fully implement the state board’s standards-aligned
curriculum, which includes instructional materials and associated professional
development.
Additionally, each LEA must revise its local education plan and submit
it for review by the state board.
This revised plan was originally to be submitted by July 1, however
the state last week extended the date to the end of September, Burnside
said.
“So between now and September 30, we have to revise our LEA plan,
which is a document that should guide the work of the district,” she
said. “Our LEA plan is dated in that it’s way out of compliance
and needs lots of revisions.
“These folks (Achievement Equity) will come in and help us make
those changes,” she said.
The new and improved plan must be implemented by fall 2010, she said.
Achievement Equity’s contract runs retroactively from April 15
through June 30, 2009. The funds will come out of the district’s
School Library Improvement Block Grant budget and will be paid in quarterly
installments, according to the motion the board May 13 passed.
“Bottom line, we are fortunate. Some districts are struggling
with where they’re going to come up with the funds,” Burnside
said. “Our
district is able to move expeditiously, and it is in our best interest
to do it because the longer we wait to identify our support provider,
the shorter the timeline will be for us to get this information to
the federal government.”
Board member Emma Sharif said she’s concerned about the large
expense and its impact on the budget.
“But I am happy that we do have a funding source so that we can
move forward,” Sharif said.
Burnside said the state government is currently considering a piece
of legislation that would assist districts financially in meeting the
mandated sanctions, which are coming at a time when the state and education
as a whole are in fiscal crisis.
“Right now they are looking at $225,000 plus $20 per student… So,
as a district, we will be able to recoup most of the funds we’re
putting forward.”
The bill is SB 606 and was authored by state Sen. Don Perata (D-East
Bay).
Within the district, 26 individual schools are this year on the NCLB’s
so-called “need-to-improve” list. That’s one less
than the previous year.
Twelve elementary and all of the district’s middle and high schools
are in varying degrees of PI status. Ten schools are now in their fifth
year of PI: Anderson, Foster and McKinley elementary; Enterprise, Roosevelt,
Walton and Whaley middle; and Centennial, Compton and Dominguez high
schools.
To make the program improvement list, a school must for at least two
years in a row fail to meet federal goals in mathematics and English
language arts on standardized tests. A school in its first year of
PI has for two consecutive years failed to meet AYP requirements.
For those interested in viewing the district’s LEA, they will
now be able to do so. Burnside said that previously the documents were
not made public, but that’s all about to change as part of the
state’s recommendations.
“So everyone will know what our LEA plan is,” the superintendent
said. “In other words, the state and federal government mean
business.”.
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