Leaders Targeting Calif. Districts

Six failing school districts in California will be assigned intervention teams by the state education department in an effort to pull them out of program improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act, under a recommendation from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell.

The Arvin Union Elementary, Fairfax Elementary, Greenfield Union Elementary, Keppel Union Elementary, Ravenswood City Elementary, and West Fresno Elementary school districts, which have a combined enrollment of about 22,200 students, will each be assigned a District Assistance and Invention Team, or DAIT—a group of educational professionals who will examine all aspects of the district and make recommendations.

A seventh district, the Coachella Valley Unified School District, which has an enrollment of 17,500 students, will be assigned a trustee because of an earlier arrangement in 2005 in which it received a $1.9 million federal grant. In that agreement, it was understood that if improvements toward NCLB targets were not made, a trustee would be assigned.

The governor and state superintendent are also recommending that 38 troubled districts choose their own DAITs from a state-approved list, and that 42 implement targeted technical assistance. Another nine districts and the Orange County Office of Education are being advised to revise their local education plans in order to target student groups that are not making adequate yearly progress.

The plan of “corrective action,” which the districts are facing because they are in their third year of program improvement under NCLB, will need to be approved by the state board of education, which will take up the matter later this month. (“‘NCLB Restructuring Found Ineffectual in California,” Feb. 14, 2008.)

“Where achievement lags, it’s appropriate that districts look more deeply at how they are delivering a standards-based education to every student,” Mr. O’Connell said in a press release.