"To consign everyone to failure is no way to upgrade the system," said Marion Joseph, a member of the state education board. "We in no way want to lessen the pressure on the system. This doesn't help the situation. We don't have an answer yet."
Even if officials used this strategy, most of California's 8,000 schools could still fail to meet annual targets for improvement that the federal law requires, according to a preliminary state analysis.
Just 33% of youngsters statewide were proficient on California's English-language arts tests last spring, up slightly from 31% the year before. Some schools had no proficient students.
The results underscore the enormous task of raising achievement levels, especially in overcrowded schools that are staffed by inexperienced teachers and serve legions of students who speak English as a second language.
The challenges are apparent at Los Angeles Academy, a public middle school in South Los Angeles. Just 4% of the school's sixth-graders were proficient in English-language arts, according to results from last spring's state test.
Mistie Barela, who teaches English as a second language, ticks off her school's obstacles: class sizes of 40 students. Little training for new teachers. Multiple reforms that are confusing and uncoordinated. The year-round calendar that chops more than three weeks off the school year and disrupts classes with stop-and-start schedules.
"Give us the resources, give us the time. Give us the appropriate pay. Lower my class sizes," Barela said.
"Before jumping to the top of the ladder, let's take the steps to get there," she said.
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State Proficiency Requirements
Examples of what California students must know to be considered proficient:
Fourth-grade English language arts:
Identify metaphors and similes in literary works.
Distinguish between cause and effect, and between fact and opinion, in expository text.
Fourth-grade math:
Know that numbers such as 2, 3, 5 and 7 do not have any factors except 1 and themselves, and that such numbers are called prime numbers.
Round whole numbers through the millions to the nearest ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand or hundred thousand.
Eighth-grade English language arts:
Understand the characteristics and purposes of various forms of poetry, including couplets, epics and sonnets.
Eighth-grade math:
Understand the concepts of parallel lines and perpendicular lines, and how those slopes are related.
Tenth-grade English language arts:
Analyze how a work of literature is related to the themes and issues of its historical period.
Design and publish documents by using advanced publishing software and graphic programs.
Tenth-grade math:
Be adept at operations on polynomials, including long division.
Understand and use the properties of logarithms.
