Save Fresno Unified is a partnership between Fresno Citizens for Good Government and the citizen advisory group who produced the “Choosing our Future” report. "Choosing our Future" is a plan to turn Fresno Unified from one of the worst school districts in the nation to what we hope will become one of the best. Nothing is more important to the future prosperity of our community. Our purpose is to monitor progress of the District and to encourage community support for this ambitious and vitally important turn-around effort.
1. FUSD’s academic performance lags all other benchmark districts.
We have seen above that FUSD’s academic performance does not compare favorably to LBUSD or GGUSD. In fact, it compares unfavorably to all the benchmark districts. While the threat of a State take-over of FUSD for financial reasons has been the focus of much attention, there has not been enough attention paid to the real and present threat of a state take-over of some of FUSD’s schools for academic performance reasons. Fresno ranks below the California average in all subjects and grade levels (see Appendix E for California Standards Test comparisons). Fixing this academic achievement problem – indeed aspiring to become a high-performing school – should be the paramount objective of FUSD officials, with support of all community stakeholders.
2. “Best Practices” districts have overarching Academic Goals that drive all other district decisions.
As with any organization, every school district has goals and strategies at different levels of the organization. Individual schools each have goals and strategies designed around their specific mission within the overall District, and the assistant superintendent for elementary schools will have goals and strategies that are different than those of his or her counterpart for secondary education, but it is imperative that districts have certain goals that align the activities of all members of the district. It is instructive to look at how GGUSD has defined its district goals. They have two goals, and they take priority over any other consideration in the District’s decision-making.
GGUSD District Goal # 1
Students in our district five years or longer will meet grade-level proficiency in core academic subjects as measured by the CST.
- Students will increase a minimum of one performance level per year. - In progressing toward “Proficient”, students at “Far Below” will progress in 1 year to “Below”, and those at “Below” in year 1 to “basic”; those at “Basic” will progress in 2 years to “Proficient.” - All grade-level proficient students will maintain the “Proficient” performance level. - No student will drop in academic performance level in progressing toward or maintaining “Proficient.”
GGUSD District Goal # 2
All English Learners will advance one level per year in English language proficiency until English Proficient as measured by the California English Language Development Test (CELDT).
- Students will gain one overall language proficiency level annually until they reach English proficiency. - Those reaching English proficient level will maintain it until reclassified FEP. - Local ELD assessments will be used during the school year to monitor progress. These are challenging goals. While neither goal statement explicitly mentions reduction of the achievement gap between socio-economic groups, clearly that is a very large part of what is intended. As the GGUSD superintendent put it to the Task Force, “if the kids are with us for five years, we ‘own’ them – it’s our responsibility to bring them up to proficient levels”. GGUSD is currently at a 68% achievement rate for both goals, so they have a long way to go, but their tenacious pursuit of these goals has had a highly desirable impact on the District’s academic performance.
3. “Best Practices” districts are unrelenting about fixing underperforming schools.
Garden Grove today has no schools in Program Improvement – not a single one! It wasn’t always that way. They have worked relentlessly through “intervention teams” to fix the schools that needed fixing. Long Beach had 17 schools in Program Improvement two years ago and all but three have now met all the criteria to be removed from Program Improvement.
How do these “Best Practices” Districts do it?
- They are clear about goals and expectations.
- They provide a consistent academic program throughout the district, so that transient kids don’t get lost in transition.
- They provide massive, consistent training to all administrators and teachers.
- They provide lots of support to school administrators and are not afraid to be prescriptive when necessary.
- They reassign or dismiss instructional employees who have failed to perform adequately and have not responded effectively to counseling (see C.10 below).
4. Some Fresno Unified Schools have done remarkably well in the midst of systemic dysfunction. FUSD should learn from these internal “best practices” schools as well as “best practices” in high performing districts.
An unfortunate fall-out of having a school district with so many failings is that it leads some to label all schools in the district as failures. That, of course, is patently unfair. Forkner, Gibson, Malloch and Manchester GATE elementary schools as well as Edison Computech Middle School score API’s above 800 and are fully AYP compliant; and several others are near that level.
Other schools are making significant progress. Notably, the dramatic progress at McCardle Elementary School has caused it to be nominated recently as a “Blue Ribbon School, one of only 34 California schools so recognized. Among other elementary schools, Addams, Del Mar, Jefferson, Kirk, Lawless and Sunset all achieved API growth greater than 35 points from 2003 to 2004. While these schools are not yet fully AYP compliant, they are certainly moving in the right direction. We need to better understand what has caused Sunset to raise its API by a remarkable 125 points in the last two years, and Kirk to raise its scores by 106 points in the same period. What instructional practices are they using that may be transferable to other schools in the District?
Among Middle Schools, Kings Canyon and Tehipite also made API jumps of more than 35 points last year (Tehipite is up 73 points in the last two years). Among High Schools, Bullard High and McLane made API improvements of more than 20 points and have fully met AYP requirements. CART, a charter school operated in joint venture with Clovis Unified, is a world-class model for project-based instruction.
It is instructive to look at comparisons of performance across the District. Much research has been done that demonstrates a correlation between the socio-economic status of students and academic success. It should not surprise us, therefore, to find that most of our highest performing schools in FUSD are in areas with high socio-economic levels. The comparison of elementary schools shown below makes this point clear. (Readers should note that these are 2004 numbers for elementary schools only and should not be confused with K-12 comparisons for prior years shown elsewhere in this report).
It should also not surprise us that magnet schools perform better than other schools in the District. Because magnets Computech and Manchester were designed to meet the needs of high performing and GATE students, these schools attract high-achieving students whose absence from their neighborhood schools detracts from the overall effectiveness of the neighborhood schools. Other magnet programs serve a broader range of students, but they tend to be students with highly motivated parents who self-select into magnet programs. The drain on neighborhood non-magnet schools isn’t just the students; it is the participation of their motivated parents, also.
What should surprise us, favorably, is the relatively strong performance of certain schools from low socio-economic areas in FUSD. The following chart is indicative of what is possible. Note the significant disparity in API scores between the top three schools and the bottom three schools listed, all with similar percentages of English learners and students who receive free and reduced lunch. It is noteworthy that all six schools have made progress, but Jackson, Wishon and Aynesworth have all shown significantly higher API growth in the last two years than the other three schools. We need to understand what is causing this divergence in growth of achievement scores. What practices are being used in the higher performing schools that might be replicable in the lower performing schools? What unique challenges do the lower performing schools have that need to be addressed? Are there variables typically outside the control of the District (such as housing density, emergency housing or foster care with frequent clients turnover, etc.) which contribute to the divergence? Might the District influence those variables if it engages collaboratively with other agencies? The District needs to aggressively analyze all variables, tackle those within its control, and influence those within the control of others.
It is instructive, also, to see how schools in low socio-economic areas in the high performing districts compare to FUSD schools in comparable areas. Note, in particular, that all of these schools have higher percentages of English learners than the above sampling of schools from FUSD. What can we learn from their instructional practices? What are they doing to reach these children and give them life-changing opportunities to succeed?
The above comparisons are not intended to enable the reader to draw conclusions. They do suggest that we need to look deeper. We are likely to find instructional practices that are yielding superior results and should be replicated in other schools. We are also likely to find unique challenges in certain schools that need to be addressed creatively. |
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