The Press-Enterprise, February 26, 2007

SAN BERNARDINO - Two more San Bernardino City Unified School District elementary schools seeking to shed their state-monitored status have new, detailed improvement plans in place.

Corrective plans for Warm Springs and Muscoy, which were named state-monitored schools in November, were approved Feb. 20 by the school board.

A school can become state-monitored if it fails to make adequate test-score progress under one of two voluntary grant programs that provide additional money to boost student achievement. Arrowhead, Riley, Parkside and E. Neal Roberts are other state-monitored district elementary schools.

State law requires sanctions against state-monitored schools, often in the form of a contract between the district and a School Assistance and Intervention Team that issues a report of findings and recommendations in nine key categories.

There are 177 state-monitored schools in California, said Laura Wagner, administrator of the intervention assistance office at the state Department of Education.

Schools get additional money to make required changes, which are "not rocket science at all," Wagner said.

For example, the latest reports indicate a need to protect both schools' core language-arts and math instruction from interruptions. Other areas of concern for both schools, among the nine categories, include tracking the progress of English language learners and providing more classroom support, particularly for math instruction.

Parents should be concerned if their child's school is state monitored, Wagner said, urging them to get involved through school-site councils.

Students cannot transfer just because they are in a state-monitored school, Wagner said. She said she wouldn't necessarily transfer her child from such a school, because it receives added attention.

District Superintendent Arturo Delgado said he believes Muscoy and Warm Springs have realistic improvement plans.

Two other district elementary schools, Vermont and Rio Vista, recently exited grant programs and Delgado said he expects similar success for Muscoy and Warm Springs.

Intervention teams can do some good, but they are hamstrung by factors out of their control, said Lance Izumi, director of education studies at the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute think tank.

"They can't do very much about the issues that affect student performance," Izumi said, offering teacher quality and teacher contract squabbles as two examples.

Izumi criticized the modest test-score progress schools must show to exit the grant programs, which can be as small as a few points on the 200-1,000 Academic Performance Index.

"It's a Band-Aid, a way to show the public the schools are trying to do something," Izumi said.

Izumi cautioned against assuming that non-state monitored schools are automatically better.

"That doesn't necessarily mean that their school is doing all right," Izumi said. "They escape any kind of accountability."

Reach Adam C. Hartmann at 909-806-3055 or ahartmann@PE.com