Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
COMEBACK KIDS
Program helps, but many schools stay below average
Cambeiro Elementary Principal Pamela Simone has watched test scores founder for years and knows exactly what she needs to fix her school.
An additional teacher would help reduce class size. The after-school programs could use a boost. And included in Simone’s wish list is a mere 19 extra minutes in the school day.
Now that her school is entering the Clark County School District’s Turnaround Zone, Simone will receive resources to help boost it from a low-performing status. Cambeiro is in the state’s bottom eighth percentile for math scores and in the bottom fifth for reading.
The Turnaround Zone, implemented five years ago, has a straightforward goal: Reach three-star status on the state’s accountability system within three years. For high schools, the goal is to increase graduation rates.
Next year, Cambeiro and three other schools will join the 12 currently on the
zone’s fast-track to improvement.
Cambeiro was one of five remaining schools recommended for the Achievement School District — an initiative that would pair the state’s lowest-performing schools with charter operators.
“They weren’t getting the whole story. They didn’t know our community,” Simone said of Cambeiro’s placement on the recommended list. “They were just basing it off the scores that they had, and there’s so much more to the community than only those scores.”
District officials argue that the Turnaround Zone is a proven model, and that schools exit the zone in better standing than they entered.
But a broader look at state data shows there is always room for improvement — nine of 13 schools that have exited the zone still fall below state averages, either in both math and reading proficiency levels or in composite ACT scores.
‘AN APPROACH ON STEROIDS’
School Associate Superintendent Jeff Geihs, who oversees the Turnaround Zone, calls it an educational “approach on steroids.”
All the middle and elementary schools that have exited so far — with the exception of Sunrise Acres Elementary — have met the threestar goal. High schools have seen their graduation rates exceed 60 percent. Only Mojave High School, which exited the zone in 2016, has spent more than three years in turnaround.
“Ours is a proven system,” Geihs said. “It works very well.”
Through federal Title 1 funds that aid high-poverty populations, elementary and middle schools receive roughly $300,000 to $400,000 in their first year in the zone, according to Geihs. High schools receive about $600,000 to $800,000.
Schools receive smaller portions of those initial amounts in years two and three.
The money can go to a variety of support services — including better programs or a longer school day.
Principals and roughly a dozen teachers can also be removed from turnaround schools. This year, Simone is the only principal remaining in the newly designated turnaround schools. New leaders will be installed at Clyde Cox Elementary, Tom Williams Elementary and Orr Middle School.
Overall, the elementary and middle schools have generally improved their test scores, increasing their percentiles in math and reading.
Roundy Elementary, for example, entered the zone in 2012 in the bottom seventh percentile for math and the bottom fifth in reading. It exited in 2016 in the 78th percentile for math and the 59th for reading.
But even upon exiting, 2016 scores show that many previous turnaround schools still fell below the statewide proficiency levels in those subjects.
And while high schools have significantly increased their graduation rates, nearly all their composite ACT scores fell below the statewide average of 17.4.
Geihs acknowledges that schools are not always where they should be once they exit the zone, but he says they’re in a better position to improve themselves. He likens the assistance to a patient leaving the emergency room.
“You look at schools that need emergency-room treatment. You bring them in,” he said. “When they’re able to leave the hospital on their own volition, then you leave and then treat other schools that are in the emergency room.”
REACHING ALL KIDS
In a sense, the incoming Achievement School District gave the Turnaround Zone a need to defend its results. It’s an example, district officials have argued, that they are already addressing the neediest schools.
But achievement officials argue they only want to expand upon the effort to help those schools.
“Limiting our options by saying it’s one solution or another solution actually slows us down in terms of what we want to accomplish,” said Achievement School District Superintendent Jana Wilcox Lavin.
State Department of Education officials also note that the scope of the effort may not be something the Turnaround Zone can address on its own.
“Even if the Achievement School District was taking the max six schools that it could take every year, and Clark County was putting in as many schools into the Turnaround Zone as it could handle, there would be schools that would need some sort of plan or strategy,” said Brett Barley, the state’s deputy superintendent for student achievement.
While there has been a strong public outcry against the achievement district, the state is offering districts a compromise.
Districts can enter into a Student Performance Compact that sets interventions for underperforming schools, with the same goal: three stars in three years. Schools that meet set targets will not be considered for entry into the achievement district.
“We’ve got to figure out ways to work with each other,” Barley said. “To really put all hands on deck to improve almost historically underserved students— in particular, their educational opportunity.”