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| Cabrillo schools do many things well beyond testing By Jolanda Schreurs--Matter of Opinion Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 4:06 PM PDT It is said that raising and educating children is among the hardest and yet most rewarding of endeavors. So how do our Cabrillo Unified School District schools do in educating our children? Federal standards show that greater than 75 percent of our district's "white" subgroup of students is proficient and/or advanced in language arts and math. Take an individual school like Cunha Intermediate School, and compare the "white" subgroup's Academic Performance Index scores to those at middle schools over the hill, and you will find that Cunha placed 13th out of 19 schools, beating respected middle schools such as Taylor, Burlingame, Ralston and Abbott, to name a few. Moreover, Cunha has a statewide rank of "8," in other words, it tops 70 to 80 percent of all middle schools. California's standards are among the toughest in the United States, so these results are a firm indicator that our Coastside schools do well by the majority subgroup. And, given that our schools receive much lower revenues than most in San Mateo County, let alone the other states in the union, we also get a lot of "bang for our buck." So you ask, why is it that two of our schools, Cunha and Hatch Elementary, are in Program Improvement? A school is said to be in PI when a subgroup, as few as 15 percent of the school's population, does not meet federal goals two years in a row and they receive federal money. In Cunha's case, the English Language Learner subgroup did not meet its Adequate Yearly Progress goals. Not surprisingly, many other schools with similar demographics face the same challenges. In 2007, more than 49 percent of all California schools (2,208 schools) did not make their target goals. In San Mateo County, four other middle schools have population subgroups somewhat similar to Cunha's, and three did not meet their No Child Left Behind Act targets. Note that two of these don't receive federal Title I money, so they are not in PI. What is Program Improvement? It boils down to finding real-world educational strategies to raising English and math proficiencies. This year at Cunha we brought in outside consultants, added an extra mandatory English language class and summer school sessions for those students who are not proficient, as well as additional staff training. These are good things. Is the district making headway and showing continuous and substantive progress? Every year, since the first scores were released in 2003, CUSD has increased its scores. Will we continue to push for quality improvement? Of course. All you have to do is look at the strategic goals and the programmatic changes that we have instituted year after year to know that we are in the business of finding successful real-world means to improve instruction for all students and all subgroups. Our schools do many things well. This year, in the annual state writing test, 25 percent of our Cunha seventh-graders received an "8" out of "8"- the highest score. Recently, we honored two National Merit semifinalists at Half Moon Bay High School. And El Granada Elementary was one of 461 schools honored out of 4,000 Title I schools as an Academic Achievement Award-winning school. And last, please remember that there are many measures of success. For some students, it's the arts, music or creativity. For some, it's sports and athletics with its embedded discipline and competition. For others, it's academics. Tests are not the be-all or end-all. • Jolanda Schreurs is a member of the CUSD board of directors. |