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| Lagunitas takes federal funds, eschews federal reqs |
Clark Merrefield
2008-06-26 |
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Lagunitas School District is caught between conflicting state and federal laws as it applies this month for Title I funding meant to help underprivileged students.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires nearly all of a district's students to take a standardized test before Title I money is doled out, while California law allows parents to opt their children out of standardized testing. District trustees say they will respect the state law.
Although a relatively small sum is at stake for Lagunitas' elementary schools, by openly flouting the federal act the district is taking action that could have national repercussions.
"I don't know of any other example like this where any district is saying, 'I will only choose to follow state law and not federal law,'" said Maria Reyes, administrator of the Title I Policy and Accountability Office for the California Department of Education.
Lagunitas trustees say that because of the district's small size–only 256 students were registered for 2006-2007–even one student absent from testing could make several percentage points' difference.
"We've got a small population and we continue not to be in compliance with No Child Left Behind because it requires 95 percent participation in the test," Lagunitas School District Trustee Richard Sloan said. "We do not have 95 percent participation and we never will."
Although it is unable to reach that benchmark, the district has continually received Title I money with little or no reprimand. Last year the district got roughly $40,000 from Title I – only about 1.2 percent of its total budget. But because the Title I program has been available since 1965, Lagunitas trustees say their students are entitled to that money.
"The legislation that put in place Title I funds is different from No Child Left Behind, so they attached that legislation to those dollars," said Trustee Susi Giacomini. "Those were funds that were coming to our district that were serving the needs of our kids."
Now, however, the trustees may also have to deal with penalties from the state. Because of district parents' longstanding aversion to standardized testing, mostly those with children at San Geronimo Valley Elementary, Lagunitas is considered to be in year three of Program Improvement.
Program Improvement is a federal designation akin to a check-minus, or a frowny-face sticker. It is given to districts that don't have adequate testing levels, as in Lagunitas' case, or those where students test low. Year three schools face serious state penalties, including staff replacement and new curriculums, but the state has taken dramatic measures only once, replacing a district superintendent with an appointed trustee.
In a letter sent last week to the California Department of Education, Lagunitas said that
the problem is not theirs, but that it comes from upon high.
"It is clear, from our perspective, that the current conflict between California State Law and federal regulations regarding the Title I program needs to be resolved by appropriate state and federal officials," Lagunitas trustees wrote. "Until a resolution is reached, school districts, and more importantly the children they serve, should not have to suffer sanctions, corrective actions or state imposed solutions for improving student achievement."
Close to a hundred California school districts are in year three of Program Improvement, and several Lagunitas trustees think it will be logistically impossible for the state to follow through with penalties.
Lagunitas is a district known for its somewhat alternative bent. It offers Montessori and Waldorf-style teaching as well as an Open School and traditional teaching classrooms. There is a pervading appreciation for civil disobedience among some trustees – Sloan said he relishes thumbing his nose at the federal government. However, California Department of Education officials say that the No Child Left Behind Act leaves little room for protest.
"If that's the decision and they don't want to abide by the federal program their choice is not to participate in the program," Reyes said. "Once you agree to participate and receive funds you essentially are assuring that you will follow the rules of that program," Reyes said.
Berkeley Law professor Goodwin Liu agreed that the legality of the issue, at least on the federal level, is clear–to get Title I funding, standardized testing prerequisites must be met.
"I know that there are a lot of districts that feel they are burdened by the law," Liu said.
"But it's a basic principle of federal aid that the federal aid comes with certain conditions and the district has to meet them in order to participate in the system."
Several Lagunitas trustees said they consider standardized testing itself as anathema.
"Some kids are ready for language development when they're very young and are very slow with math," Trustee Steve Rebscher said. "Kids vary tremendously with the balance of their learning rates across different areas of learning and that's impossible to work with under a strict standardized testing regimen."
But the district's students are performing well even by traditional state standards.
Lagunitas Elementary scored 790 on the 2007 Academic Performance Index (API), a "very high" score, Reyes said. Scores from last year were unavailable for the district's other school, San Geronimo Valley Elementary, where well over half of the student body was exempted by their parents from standardized testing.
Rebscher added that a variety of other standards show that the school's students are high academic performers. For one, 100 percent of 2006-2007 Drake High School graduates who attended San Geronimo Valley Elementary's Open School have gone on to college, he said. In 2006 the school scored 706 on the API, with available data from only 12 students.
"We have good performance by other measures and so the strategy is to see what the state says about that for another year," Rebscher said. "If they say, 'No that's insufficient, we're going to come with some draconian measures,' we could always refund the money."
For the past several years debate has echoed through Lagunitas on whether or not to apply at all for Title I funds. Some, like Trustee Stephanie O'Brien, argued that the district would provide services for underprivileged students with or without the federal money. A why-not attitude ultimately prevailed: if the government is going to give Title I money regardless of compliance No Child Left Behind, why not take it?
"We are being very honest, we are being very direct, but in the reality of the federal government, they don't even know that we're alive. They don't know West Marin exists," O'Brien said. "We're just a blip on the radar screen so they're going to go ahead and process these checks."
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