State intervention is slated for six capital-area districts

Ninety-eight California school districts – including six in the Sacramento region – face the prospect of being whipped into shape by the state this year for not measuring up to requirements set by No Child Left Behind.

Under the federal education law passed in 2002, states are required this year to do something about districts that have fallen short every year since the law went into effect.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced California's plan during Tuesday's state of the state speech. It was the only education proposal he mentioned, despite having said last year that 2008 would be his year of education reform.

"I am announcing tonight that California will be the first state to use the powers given to us under the No Child Left Behind Act to turn these districts around," the Republican governor said Tuesday.

"No more waiting. We must act on behalf of the children."

Representatives from the 98 affected districts – including those from Del Paso Heights, Marysville, North Sacramento, Winters, Nevada County, and Tahoe-Truckee – are expected to pack the state board of education meeting Friday to share their views. Many of them will probably sound like this:

"What the state needs to do is provide assistance that supports district efforts to improve," said Dale Mitchell, superintendent of the Winters Joint Unified School District.

"You've got to provide us the resources and funding. You need to be a resource to help, as opposed to carrying a bully stick."

Mitchell's Yolo County school district landed on the state's intervention list because it missed four performance criteria in 2007: English test scores were too low among students who don't speak English and students with disabilities, math scores were too low among special education students, and too few special ed students took the standardized math test.

No Child Left Behind requires that schools test students in math and English and keep track of their performance and participation rates in categories broken down by race, income, fluency in English and disability. Each year, the portion of kids – overall and in each minority group – scoring proficient or above must go up until 100 percent reach proficiency in 2014.

Individual schools as well as entire districts can fall into sanctions under the law. The governor's plan does not address the more than 2,000 California schools that have failed to meet No Child Left Behind requirements. Instead, it focuses on whole school districts that have fallen short of the criteria.

Under the governor's plan, state officials will craft a repair plan for each of the 98 districts on the list. They range from providing help from a private consultant or county-level education team, to a takeover by the state, to completely abolishing and restructuring the school district. The programs will be paid for with $29 million in federal education funds the state has been obliged to set aside for this purpose.

The state will release the district-by-district intervention plans in the next couple of months, officials said. Then the state board of education, whose members are appointed by Schwarzenegger, must approve them before they can be carried out.

"The governor sees this as an opportunity to create some accountability within public education, especially within districts that have shown an inability over time to bring about improved student achievement," said Chris Bertelli, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's education secretary, David Long.

But the idea that all 98 districts on the list have failed to educate their students rubs some school leaders the wrong way. Ralf Swenson, superintendent of the Nevada Joint Union High School District, said his agency landed on the list because of technicalities.

Too few kids from poor families took English tests in Nevada Joint Union last year. That one slip – on top of four years of similar snafus – earned the district a black mark in the eyes of the federal law, even though the district's test scores are high. And Swenson says the problem stems from the very small student bodies at the district's two continuation schools, where the participation issue arose.

"Percentage differences occur rapidly with small numbers of kids. You can't have that many miss the test – two or three kids can knock you several percentage points," he said.

"There's these little quirks in the law that catch people in ways that don't have anything to do with student achievement."

Bertelli said the governor's interventions will be tailored to each district. Some districts will see more drastic responses from the state than will others, depending on how many criteria they've missed.

Del Paso Heights failed nine criteria. Essentially, only white students in the extremely diverse district are testing proficient in English.

No Child Left Behind has "brought a really nice focus onto our students of color, our students who speak English as a second language and our students who are special ed," said Del Paso Heights Superintendent Ramona Bishop.

But she objects to the state responding in a punitive way, and wants the district to maintain control over its plans to improve.

State officials said they hadn't yet figured out how they would respond to Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento, another local district on the list. Both are in the process of merging with two other districts to form a brand new district.

"Those kids will still be there but it's just under a different structure," said Rick Miller, deputy superintendent with the state Department of Education. "So the question is how do you deal with that?"

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