September 2008 Archives

Education Week reports rising federal academic standards is a growing concern among the nation's educators and state policy makers but not in the presidential campaign.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain have rarely touched the subject of No Child Left Behind.

According to Ed Week:

In their education proposals, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain have outlined specific plans to address provisions of the almost 7-year-old federal education law. Both would refocus the teacher-quality section to bolster the recruitment of new teachers and to experiment with new forms of teacher pay. Sen. McCain promises to make school choice and tutoring available to students in struggling schools sooner than the current law allows.

But neither candidate has said what he would do to address significant questions about the NCLB law's future, such as whether to keep its goal of universal student proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year, how to increase the rigor of states' academic standards, and how to improve the interventions in schools failing to meet achievement goals.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education named the 16 "best of the best" -- the county's Teachers of the Year.

Two of them are Los Angeles Unified teachers from the other side of the district in the San Fernando Valley: Kathie Yonemura, a fourth grade teacher at Hesby Oaks School in Encino and Jose L. Navarro, a social studies teacher at Sylmar High School.

Five local LAUSD teachers had been eligible for the County Teacher of the Year honor.

The "Sweet 16" go on to compete for California Teacher of the Year.

A lot of people out there have called me about the glut of negative news about education and said they want to read something nice for a change. That's a good idea. So I am considering writing a story each week that takes me and a photographer into the K-12 classroom, where the actual business of learning happens.

I want the community of parents, teachers, principals, district types and students to email me at vu.nguyen@dailybreeze.com and tell me why I should visit your school and write about it. I'll probably focus on one subject so if there is an amazing math teacher or an interesting science instructor out there, let me know what they're doing right.

P.S. Make sure the principal of your school or district official gives us the okay.

The Daily News takes a detailed look at the increase in the number of administrators in Los Angeles Unified in recent years -- we ran the story in the Breeze today.

Management and administrators' salaries are greater than those in comparable districts, while teacher salaries lag behind, Beth Barrett and George Sanchez report in separate stories. From Barrett's overview:

Managing almost 900 schools and more than 650,000 students is a huge task. But a review of salaries and staffing shows LAUSD's bureaucracy climbed by nearly 20 percent from 2001 to 2007. Over that period, 500 teaching positions were cut and enrollment dropped by 6 percent.

The district has approximately 4,000 administrators, managers and other nonschool employees - not including clerks and office workers - whose average annual salary is about $95,000. About 2,400 administrators are among the 3,478 LAUSD employees who earn more than $100,000 annually.

Meanwhile, the average salary for an LAUSD teacher is $63,000.

There are all kinds of sidebars, and a database of district salaries, at the Daily News website's section on the special report. There's more to come tomorrow, too.

*Here's the Monday story from George Sanchez, a which uses funding at Cleveland High School in Reseda to look at the bigger financial picture in the district. Sanchez writes that struggles with funding problems at the school are "a microcosm of those at the majority of Los Angeles Unified's network of nearly 900 schools."

A mailer arrived in my mailbox Saturday that uses the faces of smiling students to sell L.A. Unified's $7 billion bond measure -- Measure Q, which is on the November ballot.

Labeled a "Local Schools Report ... Update on Education Needs," the mailer comes targeted to local districts and their corresponding communities.

The mailer doesn't state the total bond amount, but helpfully says the bond will cost $2.42 per month per $100,000 of assessed value.

So, for a $475,000 home (that's the average city of L.A. home sale value for August 2008, down from $630,000 a year prior, according to Dataquick), that's about $138 per year. Based on average sale values of $360,000, Carson homeowners would pay about $105 per year. Gardena, it would be about $115. Lomita: $134. Hawthorne is at $113 and Inglewood, $92 (the small parts of the latter two cities are in the school district.)

(Of course, assessed values for individual homes are different than sales values. I'm just giving these number for a ballpark figure.)

Homeowners -- not renters, of course -- would continue to pay for all those other bonds passed by LAUSD voters since 1997.

Anyway, the mailer bills the bond as a repair, upgrade and improvement measure -- as the district has articulated. Specifically, it mentions: renovations of science classrooms at 29 schools; fire alarms and fireproofing at 9 schools; repairs of electrical, heating and a/c at 14 schools; and "additional repairs to aging and deteriorating schools and classrooms, including plumbing, floors and ceilings and seismic upgrades."

Five local Los Angeles Unified teachers are among the 10 who will be recognized by the district on Monday as finalists for the county's Teacher of the Year award.

Ten district teachers are among 66 overall who are vying for countywide honor. They'll be recognized at a ceremony in Universal City Monday, where the Los Angeles County Office of Education will announce the "Sweet 16" -- outstanding teachers considered the "best of the best" in the county. Those 16 then qualify for California Teacher of the Year.

We'll let you know who advances on Monday.

The local LAUSD nominees are:

Christine Blackwell of Torrance, who has taught second grade at 232nd Place Elementary School in Carson for 12 years.

Zitlalpilli Luna has taught eighth grade science at Curtis Middle School in Carson for four years.

Shari Siegler of Playa Del Rey, who's been teaching for 31 years. She has taught English/Reading Adult Independent Studies for ninth-12th graders at Westchester/Emerson Community Adult School for 22 years.

Tracey Washington has taught social/emotional development, gross motor, and literacy to preschoolers at Gardena Early Education Center for 11 years.

Efrain Nava of Carson has taught band and instrumental music at Dana Middle School in San Pedro for nine years.

A UC Riverside study concludes the majority elementary schools in the state won't meet No Child Left Behind standards by 2014, when all students are required to show proficiency in math and English.

The study reports about half of the state's elementary schools will fail to meet federal academic guidelines by 2011.

According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

The English proficiency standard is likely to trip up more schools than math, according to the study. Low-income students and English language learners are the two groups of students least likely to meet the proficiency standards.

And

Schools and districts in California had to have about one-fourth of students proficient in 2007. This year, the standard is 32 percent or higher, depending on the school and type of test. The required proficiency level will go up by about 10 percentage points each year from now until 2014, unless the law is changed.

Wiseburn and Centinela Valley Union High school district boards today will discuss Wiseburn's attempt to switch to a K-12 system and bring in a charter high school.
Wiseburn is a K-8 district that sends some of its students to Centinela Valley high schools.
But Wiseburn has tried to divorce itself from the low performing district for years which has resulted in lawsuits from Centinela Valley to stop the efforts.
The meeting will be held at Wiseburn School District Board Room at 5 p.m., 13530 Aviation Blvd. in Hawthorne.

I'm still getting responses about Torrance Unified's latest bonds effort. One being from district officials looking to clear up how long it will take for the bonds to be repaid.

My Sunday article said both the bonds will be paid back in 40 years because it's the time frame the school board approved in an Aug. 4 resolution.

But Torrance Unified said the measures are actually scheduled to be repaid in 30 years, beginning in 2010, if they both pass. I've added the district's breakdown of the payments in this blog so you all can see the numbers for yourselves.

HELPFUL NOTE:
The total yearly repayment schedule for the $265 million Measure Y is on the first page, twelfth column, that says "New Election Total Debt Service."

The total yearly repayment schedule for the $91 million Measure Z is on the second page, twelfth column, that says "Total Debt Service."

TUSD Bond Scenarios_0723081.pdf

Researchers and safety experts in Maryland don't seem to think so. They said lowering the drinking age to 18 will cause more car accidents and deaths.

The experts told state legislators to keep the drinking age 21 and that they should consider tougher penalties for teens who break the law.

According to the Washington Post:

"The risk of a fatal crash increases with the first drink, especially for drivers aged 16 to 20," said James Fell, a senior program director at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

The announcement is a response to college leaders' calls for a discussion on lowering the drinking age to 18 because it could promote moderation.

The Arizona Republic:

The reasoning behind the proposal, known as the Amethyst Initiative, is that the higher drinking age actually encourages binge drinking, a major problem on many college campuses. Nearly 100 college presidents from schools ranging from Duke University to Ohio State (but not Arizona or Arizona State) are in favor of the idea.

What do you think? Is lowering the drinking age to 18 a good or bad idea. I'd like to hear from teens on this idea.

The federal government is not giving sufficient guidance to schools that persistently fail standards instituted under No Child Left Behind, the San Francisco Chronicle reports today in a story about a new study of restructuring required under the 2001 legislation.

The study, released today, found that the number of schools failing to meet achievement goals nationwide under No Child Left Behind jumped by 50 percent since last year - with California leading the way.

California now has more than 1,000 persistently failing schools forced to undergo drastic restructuring, the study found. That's more than any other state, yet few are being helped by the mandated process.

This story has some good basic information about Program Improvement status under NCLB, if you're confused by all of this. It's not a pretty picture, according to the study, which was released by the DC-based Center on Education Policy.

Schools in California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio were included as case studies. No local schools were on the list.

Maybe this is a little bit too "inside baseball," but I thought I'd put it up on the blog anyway.

Kevin Roderick over at LA Observed reports the following LAUSD tidbit:

Gayle Pollard-Terry, former editorial writer and reporter at the L.A. Times, is the new Deputy Director of Media and Communications at LAUSD. Also, former reporter and producer Lydia Ramos becomes a public information officer.

Check out Breeze intern Janna Brancolini's story on the effects of rising enrollment numbers at local community colleges.

With the staggering economy and high unemployment rate, more adults are returning to school to gain skills. But Harbor College and El Camino College can't afford the increased number of students, Janna reports. The two schools, like all community colleges in California, essentially subsidize low tuition with state funds, which haven't been increased enough to cover the rising enrollment.

At Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, enrollment is up 10 percent, President Linda Spink said. That kind of spike is difficult to swallow.

"We can't afford to be up 10 percent," she said.

The state budget allows funding for only 2 percent growth, but most colleges probably won't even receive that, Spink explained.

*The Cal State University system is struggling as well, according to a release just issued by the office of Chancellor Charles Reed. The state budget gives the CSU system essentially the same level of funding as last year, but Cal State campuses are also seeing increased enrollment that isn't funded. The CSU budget leaves a $215 million shortfall, even though student fees went up 10 percent this year, the release says.

The budget provides no funding for enrollment growth intensifying a trend that began in 2005-06, in which student enrollment grows faster than state funding. In response, CSU campuses have increased class sizes when possible, and opened more course sections with temporary faculty appointments. To protect educational quality in the face of these funding challenges, CSU campuses will slow down enrollment growth by closing the freshmen application period for Fall 2009 earlier in the cycle.

Interesting story in today's Los Angeles Times about the eighth-grade algebra mandate that the state Board of Education approved in July. That 8-1 vote made a yearly test in algebra -- which many students do not take in middle school, and some struggle with even in high school -- a requirement.

Schwarzenegger endorsed the move at the last minute, while schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell was fiercely opposed, saying it was "setting our students up for failure." The board, which has been sued over the unanticipated vote, gave a three-year deadline to implement the mandate.

Howard Blume's story focuses on a report released today by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution that looks at the nationwide trend toward requiring algebra in eighth grade over the past two decades. The report says the push has forced unprepared students into advanced math classes, while requiring teachers to abandon the advanced learners with watered-down instruction.

To some, algebra is a social justice issue. From the intro to the report:

The push for universal eighth-grade algebra is based on an argument for equity, not on empirical evidence. General or remedial math courses tend to be curricular dead-ends, leading to more courses with the same title (for example, General Math 9, General Math 10) and no real progression in mathematical content. By completing algebra in eighth grade--and then completing a sequence of geometry as freshmen, advanced algebra as sophomores, and trigonometry, math analysis, or pre-calculus as juniors--students are able to take calculus in the senior year of high school. Waiting until ninth grade to take algebra makes taking calculus in high school more difficult. From this point of view, expanding eighth-grade algebra to include all students opens up opportunities for advancement to students who previously had not been afforded them, in particular, students of color and from poor families. Democratizing eighth-grade algebra promotes social justice

In a press release that goes with the report, author Tom Loveless calls it "false democratization."

A full report on the matter will be issued in December.

*Apparently we ran an AP story on this too. Probably should read our own coverage first ... !

Just looking over the LAUSD board agenda for tomorrow's meeting ... and purchase orders for food items caught my eye. Must be lunch time.

One order is for $473,580 to pay for 16,059 cases of hard-boiled eggs per year from Minnesota-based Cargill Kitchen Solutions. At 144 eggs per case, that's about 2.3 million eggs. Wow.

Of course, with LAUSD's almost 700,000 students, that averages out to just over 3 eggs per student per year. Maybe they're not a favorite snack among the K-12 set.

There's also a contract to provide ranch dip dressing - 45,375 cases per year, with 100 portions per case. That'll cost LAUSD $860,855.

There are also orders for "Asian brown sauce," frozen breakfast burritos, frozen toasted cheese sandwiches (oh, they're frozen? no wonder they're so tasty), etc.

Fascinating, seriously.

After its symbolic vote two weeks ago to oppose Prop 8, the proposed gay marriage ban, the Los Angeles Unified School District's board will take a look at another of the 12 measures before Californians on the November ballot: Prop 4.

The proposition would amend the state constitution to require doctors to notify the parent or guardian of a pregnant minor at least 48 hours before giving the woman an abortion -- with certain exceptions.

Board of Education President Monica García and Member Tamar Galatzan and have put an item on tomorrow's agenda that would state the board's opposition to Prop 4.

The prop marks the third time in four years that voters have looked at the parental notification issue. Prop 73 in 2005 lost with 47.3 percent voting Yes and 52.7 percent voting No. In 2006, Prop 85 lost by a greater margin: 46 percent Yes; 54 percent No.

The text of the proposed LAUSD board resolution in opposition to Prop 4 is below.

My Sunday story about Torrance Unified's effort to pass two bonds in the Nov. 4 election has gotten a lot of feedback. One of my challenges was finding folks against the bonds that are willing to talk publicly. So I figure an online pro and con blog debate is a safe place where we can all talk about it.

Should voters pass Torrance Unified's two bond measures to pay for campus upgrades and maintenance in November? Why or why not?

And remember, let's play nice. We're here to have a discussion and find out what people are thinking. The only ground rules I have is that we stay civil and on topic.

If you liked this year's record-long budget impasse, you'll love the one that's expected to happen nine months from now.

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger likely signs a spending bill for this year's budget, the San Francisco Chronicle reports officials warn "a crisis of equal magnitude looms next year because of the weakened economy, uncertainties about the use of future lottery revenue and political gridlock among state legislators."

Until then, schools can finally exhale for now and collect $58.1 billion in state dollars that have been held up for nearly three months. The amount is an uptick from last year's $56 billion but it amounts to a 0.7 cost-of-living increase --- a drop in the bucket of the 5.66 percent increase school districts hoped to get, or about $3 billion less than educators would like to see, according to Jennifer Kuhn, analyst at the state Legislative Analyst's Office.

Education leaders last week slammed the plan, saying it doesn't help local school districts pay for the rising costs.

State Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell called the plan a "gimmick," while California Teachers Association President David Sanchez and California PTA President Pam Brady each urged Schwarzenegger to use his veto power to leverage a more education-friendly budget.

"The proposed budget includes a reduction of the cost-of-living adjustment that will further tighten the vise on local school budgets as districts across the state face increased costs for supplies, food, transportation and employee health care costs," O'Connell said in a statement. "These reductions are a disservice to California's 6 million school children and the thousands of educators across the state."

The San Francisco Chronicle has a pretty good breakdown of what the budget means to the average person.

WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU: The new money doesn't cover inflation - yet the cost of salaries, benefits, books and more is rising. Students and teachers will feel the impact as teaching positions remain vacant, class size grows and even bus routes are cut back. Yet many programs - from special education to gifted education - were spared.

Stay tuned to see if lawmakers can magically fix the way public schools are funded by the summer.

I've been so overwhelmed with my own back-to-school issues that I haven't been keeping up with all the blogs I usually read and I missed this gem.

Starbucks is giving K-12 teachers free coffee when they show their ID badges every Monday in September. My tardiness has already cost you three cups. But you still have two Mondays left to take advantage of the deal. Read all the details.

I will give myself blog detention this weekend for not doing all my homework and making you all miss out on free coffee. Sorry.

The California State PTA wants parents to lobby lawmakers for a new budget deal that brings a more stable revenue stream to education. The legislature argues there is enough money for schools in the proposal --- at about $58.1 billion, up from $56.7 billion last year.

But the group backs Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plan to veto the current budget saying it only puts a short-term bandage on school finances. The proposed budget has about $9.3 billion coming through early tax collections.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune:

Critics complained that the tax speedups are gimmicks that "borrow from taxpayers" and push a chronic deficit into next year. Schwarzenegger called them "tax increases" with a "smoke screen" when he made his initial veto threat Tuesday.

Schwarzenegger and legislators don't seem to be backing down at this point. So is backing the Governor's impending budget veto a good idea as school programs continue to run without state dollars for nearly three months?

Compton Unified School District announced today that a fund has been set up in memory of Alberto Patino, the 11-year-old Whaley Middle School student who died Friday, after suffering chest injuries while playing baseball after school. (His name had not been previously published.)

Donations can be sent to:
Alberto Patino Memorial Fund
Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Pueblo de Dios
804 E. Rosecrans Ave.
Compton, CA 90221

For more info, call CUSD's Office of the Superintendent at 310-639-4321, ext. 55125.

The school district and the teachers union have both applied to the state's Public Employment Relations Board for a formal declaration of "impasse" in their negotiations over a contract for the 2007-08 school year, UTLA announced this afternoon.

Yes, they're still negotiating over the past academic year -- and it's about time to start talking about the school year we just started.

The next step is mediation, which will begin next month, said Marla Eby, spokeswoman for UTLA. If no agreement is reached then, the sides go to "fact-finding," and then potentially a strike. It would be the first strike for UTLA since 1989.

"It's been a long time and obviously that's not what we want to have happen here," Eby said.

The cash-strapped district has offered no pay increase to teachers, UTLA said. The union's press release said other L.A. County school districts have given between 2 percent and 5 percent increases.

*District Superintendent David Brewer billed the appointment of a mediator as a "positive and important step" in a press release sent out a few hours after that of UTLA.

Teachers are asking for a six-percent pay raise for the 2007-08 school year. LAUSD teachers received a six-percent raise in 2006-07. To address its budget deficit, LAUSD has already cut $427 million for 2008-09.

The release notes an "ambitious October schedule" of mediation meeting. That's going to make for a stressful month, one union rep says.

One reason behind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's likely veto of the legislative-approved budget is because of what it would mean to state education dollars.

According to the L.A. Times:

SCHWARZENEGGER: "The way this budget is right now we will need a huge tax increase next year or will have to cut education severely. It's one or the other. That's why I say we should fix the budget this year and realize there's a structural problem, create the extra revenues and then fix the system once and for all so that we have a system in place so that it doesn't happen again. That is the most important thing."

But the State Assembly and the Senate contend deep cuts to education are avoided under the plan, giving schools $58.1 billion, up from last year's $56.7 billion.

The gridlock has nearly reached the historic 80-day mark, forcing nervous school district administrators to dip into their reserves. But California schools superintendent Jack O'Connell agrees the governor should hold off until the budget addresses the state's cash problems.

"The lack of a state budget is causing real pain to businesses, schools, child care providers, and many others. We cannot allow this pain to continue. However, signing a bad budget that shortchanges schools, exacerbates California's fiscal problems, and puts off the day of reckoning would be worse than extending the short-term pain while taking the time now to do the job right.

So what's the right thing to do? Should lawmakers continue the budget standoff until schools are funded correctly or pay for mandated services like special education now?

A crisis counseling team was at Compton's Whaley Middle School today following the Friday death of an 11-year-old student who was injured when hit in the chest with a baseball.

The boy, who was playing ball on the school's athletic field as part of an after-school program, collapsed after being accidentally hit in the chest Friday afternoon.

School staff administered CPR to the student, according to a press release from the Compton Unified School District. Paramedics attempted to revive the student, who was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood. He died there later Friday night.

"The district is deeply touched by the loss of one of our students," said Superintendent Kaye Burnside in the press release. "We extend our condolences to the student's parents, family and friends and are working closely with the family to support them during this time."

The school district (which the Breeze doesn't typically cover) is working with the boy's family on a memorial fund, the press release said. For more information on the fund, call the superintendent's office at 310-639-4321, ext. 55125.

We got a press release today from a group -- Save California Summers -- that wants to push back school start dates to after Labor Day. It's billed as a family-friendly bid to save on energy costs.

I'm not sure how that plays in the Los Angeles area, where September is pretty much just as hot as August. Anyway, most of our local districts start school after Labor Day.

The release seeks to link academic success to uniform start dates:

One in five states in the nation currently have laws governing the start of the school year. In the past two years, legislatures in Texas, Florida and South Carolina have all passed uniform school start date laws. Since the laws were enacted, each state has reported state standardized test scores on the rise and Texas and South Carolina saw ACT college entrance exam scores at all time highs.

The groups is apparently beginning a statewide petition drive to support a later, uniform school start date.

State lawmakers have reportedly agreed on a no-new-taxes deal to move past one of the longest budget stalemates in California history.

According to the L.A. Times:

Their proposal would increase spending for education and healthcare, though not enough to avoid cutbacks in services. It would borrow against the state lottery. And it relies heavily on maneuvers that would push the state's financial problems into the future at a time when economists have little hope that revenue is on the rebound.

What makes this a likely deal is that both Republicans and Democrats will get some of what they want.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the latest plan provides about $58.1 billion for schools, about $300 million more than what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed in August.

But what's still unclear is if the additional education dollars will be doled out to school districts after both legislative chambers and the governor sign on the dotted line.

Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy in Wilmington was this week named a No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.

The small Los Angeles Unified School District campus was one of 320 schools nationwide that were honored for academic excellence and progress toward closing the achievement gap.

The school has been around since fall 2002 and is housed in a bunch of bungalows on the tennis courts at Harbor College. (Here's the profile I wrote at graduation time.)

The school was designed to train teachers-to-be with the goal of bringing them back to LAUSD campuses to teach. Since the first graduating class still hasn't finished college, it remains unclear if the academy has been successful at that goal. But on my visit, the students seemed to love the family atmosphere and embrace the academic challenges.

The school is not a magnet, so students aren't admitted based on their academic record. They are interviewed individually so that Prinicipal Mattie Adams can confirm they're committed to working hard.

The academy was one of 27 public schools in California -- and the only one in the South Bay and Harbor Area -- to be given the honor, which was announced Tuesday.

Other Los Angeles schools that were honored: Albert Baxter Elementary School in Bellflower; private Heschel West Day School in Agoura; private Pinecrest Schools in Van Nuys; and Vine Elementary School in West Covina.

The California Charter Schools Association has received a $3 million grant for a new data system that will allow teachers to track individual student performance with the goal of improving instructional practices, the group announced today.

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation donated the amount -- the association's largest single gift -- for a program called ZOOM! Data Source. The program was pilot-tested by a group of 30 schools. Staring this fall, 189 charters statewide will use the program, including four local campuses -- Port of Los Angeles High School in San Pedro, Crescendo Charter Academy (a K-5) in Gardena, Animo Venice Charter High School in Westchester and Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood.

"The idea is to create data-driven best practices that can then be shared," said CCSA head Caprice Young, who will leave the association at the end of the month.

Young gave a few examples of ways the web-based program will be able to track individual student performance in ways that teachers can use to make adjustments in the classroom.

Zócalo hosted an event Tuesday night about teachers unions and their relationship to school reform. I didn't make it, but the audio is available from the event, which was held at the downtown Los Angeles Public Library. Should make some interesting listening.

The event was moderated by Joe Mathews, the former L.A. Times reporter (who covered unions and wrote a book on Schwarzenegger) who's now an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.

Particants were: Joshua Pechthalt, a VP for United Teachers Los Angeles; Mikki Cichocki of the board of the California Teachers Association; David Tokofsky, a former LAUSD board member; and Steve Barr, head of Green Dot Public Schools.

The Board of Education on Tuesday voted unanimously to oppose the November ballot measure that would ban gay marriage.

The district's press release follows:

The Los Angeles Times had a really interesting take on the Accountability Progress Report last Friday.

Basically, the paper found that California's use of a less difficult test -- the CAHSEE, which is first given in 10th grade -- to assess the performance of high school students led to more secondary campuses meeting federal guidelines. If the state relied on STAR results, fewer schools would meet federal proficiency standards.

The Times analysis identified about 300 high schools that were reported as meeting all federal standards even though their combined proficiency scores in math or English language arts on the California standards tests fell below proficiency levels required for federal compliance this year. Their passing marks were based on much higher scores registered on the easier high school exit exam.

In practical terms, this means that high schools are not being consistently evaluated on what their students are supposed to be learning. The situation exemplifies California's complex, uneven and often competing state and federal accountability systems.

(snip)

Unlike elementary and middle schools, high schools are not rated on whether students master course work intended for their grade level. Instead, the accountability measure is the high school exit exam. It's one of California's high school diploma requirements, designed as a minimum standard for confirming what students have learned. The exam's math section, for example, is based on seventh-grade standards with portions of first-year algebra.

The paper notes that despite the less difficult test, only 48 percent of high schools met federal adequate yearly progess (AYP).

By the way, overall results for the CAHSEE (the California High School Exit Examination) are due out tomorrow.

unlike the incorrect data that we printed in our chart showing scores on yesterday's Academic Performance Index results.

Park Western Place Elementary School has a 925 (not a 725! ARGH!!), ranking it in the top schools in the region and far and away the top performer in San Pedro. The score is the highest among LAUSD campuses in the South Bay and Harbor Area.

Compiling those figures in a short timeframe is always a nightmare for reporters, designers and editors alike, but that's no excuse for the error that dropped the score by 200 points.

We regret the mistake and there will be a correction in print in tomorrow's paper.

*Man, it was much, much worse than just that. A bunch of the scores were misprinted, along with a few errors in the yes/no columns for state and federal standards. I'm really embarrassed by this error, and can guarantee you we'll be doing data charts differently next year. I'm sorry to communities where schools had their data wrong.

Here's the correction that ran on Satruday.

Lisa Edwards and Stephany Glover, sisters and co-founders of Legacy Charter High School in Carson, have decided to postpone the opening of their school until next year, they said today.

The pair notified LAUSD -- which approved the school's charter in March -- on Monday that they'll seek to open in fall 2009, Edwards said in an email.

The sisters had struggled to jump over a variety of hurdles in order to open in a small church this month, as my story that ran yesterday sought to show. The school has a hip-hop element to its curriculum.

Students return to LAUSD campuses today. Exciting!

Five new campuses opened in the district -- though none of them in the South Bay or Harbor Area.

New schools: Edward R. Roybal Learning Center (the school formerly known as Belmont Learning Complex with the $400 million-plus pricetag, which the district will be living down for years to come), just west of downtown LA; Helen Bernstein High School in Hollywood; Richard E. Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley; James Edward Jones Primary Center in South L.A.; and Roy Romer Middle School in North Hollywood.

The district is also getting more than a dozen new charters.

Three local charters were marking new beginnings. Magnolia Science Academy 3 - Gardena is opening today with 250 students in sixth and seventh grade. Thursday will be the first day of classes for Carson's New Millennium Secondary School, with almost 150 ninth graders. And Port of Los Angeles High School in San Pedro, which started classes yesterday, has its first senior class this year.