Want better test results? Try longer school hours

For the North County Times

Now that slightly more than half of California's students are proficient in grade level standards for English, not quite half in math, State Superintendent Jack O'Connell boasts that the state's latest school test scores have shown "steady academic progress" over the past eight years.

Scores have improved by an average of 2 percentage points each year. At this rate, it will take another 20 years for California to meet the No Child Left Behind goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014.

O'Connell laments the lack of progress in closing the achievement gap separating Latinos, African Americans and the economically disadvantaged from their white classmates. The 20 to 30 percentage point difference in English and math scores has barely budged in a decade.

O'Connell announced two initiatives targeted to close the gap: the newly adopted Common Core standards and a book on research-based approaches to teaching English Learners. He says his staff will help schools implement the book's recommendations.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his best-selling book, "Outliers: The Story of Success," suggests the solution to improving school performance may be simpler than we think ---- more instructional time. He points to KIPP charter schools (Knowledge Is Power Program) as a model. San Diego's KIPP Adelante, the only one in the county, has achieved impressive results with the very student population O'Connell wants to help.

A public charter school enrolling 360 students in grades 5 through 8, Adelante features an extended school day (7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), a longer school year, and monthly Saturday classes. All students are economically disadvantaged, 87 percent are Latino, 64 percent are English learners. Forty percent of their parents did not graduate from high school.

So how did they do on this year's California Standards Test? While just 28 percent of Adelante's first-year fifth-graders were proficient or above grade level in English, 75 percent of eighth-graders had attained that level. In math, 22 percent of fifth-graders were proficient, while 75 percent of eighth-graders were. The school's Academic Performance Indicator (API) places it in the top 10 percent of similar schools and top 20 percent of all schools in California.

In comparison, only 61 percent of Vista's eighth-graders scored at or above proficiency in English and only 49 percent in math, despite the district's multimillion-dollar investment over the past several years in an off-the-shelf, proprietary reading program designed to be a quick fix for low test scores.

Rather than placing his faith in revised school standards and another how-to book for teachers, maybe Superintendent O'Connell should spend more time helping California compete successfully in the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" school funding program.

It's intended to help states replicate the success of schools like KIPP Adelante.

Mayor Lewis' bedtime story

For www.carlsbadistan.com

Every hundred years the slumbering residents of Brigadoon awaken for a day to celebrate their unchanging lives, united in the knowledge that if anybody leaves town, their enchanted village will disappear forever.

Last week at the Dove Library, Carlsbad’s 2010 state of the city video (embedded above) gave a hundred local residents their annual reassurance that all is well in their village, and they can keep it that way by not leaving town to shop.

Mayor Bud Lewis explained there’d be no questions allowed from the floor because he didn’t want the event to become an election forum. You could approach staff and council members individually with your questions after the show.

Mythical cities dislike public discord.

The mayor then introduced city council members and candidates for the November election. Since nobody but current office holders showed up, skeptics might ask if challengers had been told they’d be introduced, especially since the mayor has been a strong supporter of Matt Hall for mayor and Mark Packard to retain his seat on the council.

Despite Lewis’s promise to keep politics out of the evening’s presentation, he couldn’t resist putting a spin on how he wants folks to vote in November. He outlined what he considered to be the four most important issues facing the city next year. Only one of them, the sustainability of Carlsbad’s water supply, was non-political. The others: his successor’s vision for the city, a warning about union control of the council and public employee pensions were all about politics.

Lewis urged passage of Proposition G, on the ballot this fall, which would require a vote of the people for future increases in police and firefighter retirement benefits but only a majority vote of the council to reduce them. He didn’t explain why safety employees should be singled out. Nor did he say why our elected representatives can’t be trusted to take full responsibility for fair and competitive pay and benefits for all city employees.

Prop. G amounts to a no-lose strategy for office holders. Given today’s anti-government rhetoric, a politician’s future is more threatened by raising city worker benefits than by cutting them. It’s a familiar game: when you campaign for office boast of your knowledge, experience and wisdom to do the right thing; then, after you’re elected, turn over the tough decisions to voters—the same ones who voted for you because you claimed to be smarter than they were.

The 17-minute video was an overview of the city’s efforts to retain its natural beauty, quality of life and economic stability. It celebrated Carlsbad’s commitment to desalination, water recycling and energy conservation.

During a five-minute segment on financial planning, seven charts flashed across the screen at the rate of 8 seconds each, depicting the city’s expenses, taxes and revenues. The narrator’s brief commentary raised more questions than answers. It was a kind of shell game for viewers to guess what nuggets of information might be uncovered before a chart disappeared from the screen.

We learned, for example, that $10 million was slashed from the general fund and 25 employee positions were eliminated over the last two years. But we weren’t told what services were sacrificed, other than the delayed construction of a park, identified by name only, rather than as the site for a long-promised community swimming pool.

Viewers were left to conclude that having to wait for a new city park has been the city’s only hardship caused by the recession.

There was no mention of Carlsbad’s unemployment rate. Or whether anyone cares about how many jobs will be lost with Callaway Golf’s announcement of moving its operations to Mexico. Or how much longer taxpayers will be required to bail out the failing golf course. Or what’s become of Proposition C, the 2002 voter-approved plan for the city to purchase more open space.

This state of the city report was all about business-friendliness, infrastructure repairs, careful planning and prudent spending. Support for the arts, youth activities, the growing senior population, the community’s burgeoning ethnic diversity, and affordable housing went unmentioned.

The only challenge facing the city next year, according to this feel-good video, is to stop a power plant from being built near the beach so developers will be able to descend on Ponto, identified only as the “South Carlsbad Redevelopment Zone.”

Are North County’s Brigadoon villagers content with their yearly bedtime story? Stay tuned for November’s election results.

Carlsbad as our Brigadoon

For the North County Times

Every hundred years the slumbering residents of Brigadoon awaken for a day to celebrate their unchanging lives, united in the knowledge that if anybody leaves town, their enchanted village will disappear forever.

Last week at the Dove Library, Carlsbad's 2010 state of the city video gave a hundred local residents their annual reassurance that all is well in their village, and they can keep it that way by not leaving town to shop.

Mayor Bud Lewis explained there'd be no questions allowed from the floor because he didn't want the event to become an election forum. You could approach staff and council members individually with your questions after the show.

Mythical cities dislike public discord.

The 17-minute video was an overview of the city's efforts to retain its natural beauty, quality of life and economic stability. It celebrated Carlsbad's commitment to desalination, water recycling and energy conservation.

During a five-minute segment on financial planning, seven charts flashed across the screen at the rate of 8 seconds each, depicting the city's expenses, taxes and revenues. The narrator's brief commentary raised more questions than answers. It was a kind of shell game for viewers to guess what nuggets of information might be uncovered before a chart disappeared from the screen.

We learned, for example, that $10 million was slashed from the general fund and 25 employee positions were eliminated over the last two years. But we weren't told what services were sacrificed, other than the delayed construction of a park, identified by name only, rather than the site for a long-promised community swimming pool.

Viewers were left to conclude that having to wait for a new city park has been the city's only hardship caused by the recession.

There was no mention of Carlsbad's unemployment rate. Or whether anyone cares about how many jobs will be lost with Callaway Golf's announcement of moving its operations to Mexico. Or how much longer taxpayers will be required to bail out the failing golf course. Or what's become of Proposition C, the 2002 voter-approved plan for the city to purchase more open space.

This state of the city report was all about business-friendliness, infrastructure repairs, careful planning and prudent spending. Support for the arts, youth activities, the growing senior population, the community's burgeoning ethnic diversity, and affordable housing went unmentioned.

The only challenge facing the city next year, according to this feel-good video, is to stop a power plant from being built near the beach so developers will be able to descend on Ponto, identified only as the "South Carlsbad Redevelopment Zone."

Are North County's Brigadoon villagers content with their yearly bedtime story? Stay tuned for November's election results.