The Decision: The Palm Lane ordeal will soon end. This week, Judge Andrew Banks ordered the Anaheim City School District and its school board to reverse a previous decision, accept the petition initiated by Palm Lane parents, and begin the process to establish a charter school. (Read the entire decision here.) Judge Banks labeled the school district’s decision to reject the parents’ petition as arbitrary, capricious, unfair, and unreasonable, stating, “Clearly, the Respondents [the school district and the board of education] did not meet their obligations of good faith cooperation [with parents].” The actions of the district and school board likely constitute administrative malfeasance.
The School: Judge Banks labeled student achievement at Palm Lane Elementary School as abysmal. In fact, Palm Lane is one of hundreds of so-called abysmal public schools in California, schools within which students have not recorded satisfactory progress on state tests, principally reading and math tests. Why? Because many students attending California’s public schools lack English fluency. Their native language is not English. Approximately 55% of the 3.3 million students in California’s public schools are Hispanic. A federal law, No Child Left Behind, imposed higher curricula standards each year, ensuring that students would score poorly on state test and imposing penalties on schools that failed to achieve impossible goals. A commitment to high-stakes testing has continued throughout the Obama Administration.
The Students: Among the 516 students at Palm Lane whose test scores were used to calculate the most recent API score, the metric used by Judge Banks to label students’ achievement as abysmal, 442 (86%) students were Hispanics. (The “non-failure API score” for all California public K–12 schools is 800.) Test scores are not likely to change significantly. A revision of No Child Left Behind, Every Child Achieves, is currently under consideration by Congress. (No Child Left Behind expired in 2007.) The final version of the bill that will be signed into law this year will likely lessen the emphasis on school testing, but not by much. Politicians, Democrats more than Republicans, continue to extol school accountability and argue for the necessity of annual student testing. Few voices are heard who oppose rigorous and multiple assessments—despite the lack of relationship between test scores and school performance.
For many years federal and state governments have regarded school testing as indispensable. Yet a review of test scores of several decades reveals that increased testing has not resulted in improving student achievement. Reading and math scores have remained flat for decades. Behold: National Assessment reading scores of students aged 9, 13, and 17 years since 1971.
The Future: No plan or proposal has been presented that provides a basis to believe that converting Palm Lane Elementary School to a charter will make a difference in students learning to read English successfully—the single most important skill Palm Lane students need to acquire. The focus has always remained on power and control, neither factor which contributes to language learning. Because the same teaching methods will undoubtedly prevail for teaching English language learners whether Palm Lane is a charter school or a regular public school, there is no reason for optimism about a change in students’ language proficiency.
During the months ahead, the Palm Lane school community will be seriously disrupted. The gifted students now attending Palm Lane will likely be displaced. Parents and children alike will pay a high price for change. My guess is that the cost for this change will not be worth the price that students, parents, teachers, and the community will pay. Round 1 of the ordeal at Palm Lane will end in a month. Round 2 begins with initiating the conversion of Palm Lane into a charter school. This bout will go the distance, disrupting lives of children and parents for several years to come.
The Conclusion: To change the designation of Palm Lane to charter masks the principal factor that accounts for the difference in school performance among students who lack proficiency in speaking and reading English. This educational problem is not new. Before No Child Left Behind there was the Reading Excellence Act, signed into law by President Clinton on 1998. Among its goals: Teach every child to read before Grade 4, and use research-based teaching methods. Because legislating school success, imposing penalties for substandard student performance, and testing insatiably to prevent school failure have never worked, do not be surprised in 2025 when scores on state reading and math tests at Palm Lane (and at other schools) are about the same as they are now.
Amen.
To summarize, Hugh – you’re basically telling the Palm Lane parents to lump it and suck it up, because nothing can be done.
I didn’t realize the heavens would fall if a group of parents cared enough about their children’s education to persevere through the lies and disinformation spread by the unions representing employees who, theoretically, work for them, and a district that abandoned its lawful role as a neutral party in order to do everything it could to frustrate the ability of these parents to exercise their rights under state law.
With all due respect, Hugh, your position isn’t much different than the ACSD educracy: telling parents to sit down, be quiet and listen to people who know better.
I have not been in the trenches of this battle. At this point it seems clear that the Anaheim City School District, board members, and school administrators did not willingly comply with state law, which I acknowledged. I lack any personal knowledge regarding the role of teacher unions in this action. But as a former member of the California Teachers Association, I regard CTA as largely a self-serving organization whose principal goal for many years has been singular: to control public education in California. The petitioners in the Palm Lane court action, however, also seek educational control. More important, they have never presented any plan or proposal to my knowledge to address the educational needs of children at Palm Lane Elementary School. They have expressed concern only about low test scores and wanting to assume administrative control of Palm Lane, which seems more a matter of power and empowerment than assuming responsibility for instructional programs.
It was not my contention that parents “lump it and suck it up, because nothing can be done.” I have pointed out numerous times that merely changing the name “regular school” to “charter school” does not provide any rational basis to believe that the outcome of educational programs in a charter school would measurably improve student performance more than occurs in regular public schools. Academic achievement in charter schools is generally the same as student achievement in regular public schools.
Nicely put.
Hugh, the way the Parent Trigger Law works is parents can, by meeting certain criteria, convert their school into a charter; then they solicit proposals from charter operators. That is the point at which you’ll see the plans and proposals. Do think that parents, in addition to all the other hurdles they have to overcome, should also be required to have a detailed proposal when petitioning for charter status under the Parent Trigger Law?
Working as a full-time researcher and editor, I approach the Palm Lane controversy as I do any study. First, identify the problem. The problem at Palm Lane is shared by hundreds of schools throughout California: Many students whose first language is not English score poorly on state tests. The petitioning parents in this case, supported by the Center for Parent Empowerment (CPE), have voiced a complaint instead of identifying specific problems. Neither the parents nor the center has presented a vision for a charter school or changes in the current instructional program that would result in increasing student performance at a faster rate than which currently occurs at Palm Lane.
During press conferences, the petitioners, almost all who spoke Spanish, identified only global goals and wishes and expressed critical comments about Palm Lane. (I am assuming their spoken words were translated accurately.) Parents reportedly spoke words such as these:
“I want my child to have the American dream.”
“I want more field trips.”
“The school is doing bad. We want to make it better.”
“We want better computers, better teachers, and better staffing.”
Referring to children in nearby Anaheim elementary schools, “I want what they have.”
One parent who attended Palm Lane asserted that the current teachers do not “push” students to succeed as much or provide the help he received.
The petitioners, encouraged by the CPE, have charged that Palm Lane is a failing school solely because of substandard scores on state tests and its API scores. There are, of course, hundreds of California schools who received a substandard rating—including 18 elementary schools in the Anaheim City School District. Only 5 (21%) Anaheim public schools recorded successful API scores. The latest three-year average API score for Palm Lane and 17 other Anaheim schools was a “failing” score.
Fact: Approximately 75% of students at Palm Lane are English language learners, and 95% are classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged. The problem at Palm Lane is clearly not school type. The solution is helping its students learn to speak, read, and write English proficiently. Substituting charter for regular atop the principal’s office is not a solution.
The union has had no involvement in any of this battle. So get the facts straight and stop your union bashing.
Really? Perhaps you’d like me to give you the business card of the union official I spoke to who was overseeing union members standing outside of Palm lane Elementary conducting an “informational” campaign? Or you missed all those union members going to the homes of parents who signed the Parent Trigger petition? Or all those unions who mobilized members to attend the ACSD Board meeting earlier this year to speak against approving the Parent Trigger petition?
Cocco, your claim of “no union involvement” has absolutely no basis in reality.
Cocco, You are wrong in stating Union members are not involved. I am a parent of a student at Palm Lane and was approached at the school and given literature by a “Union member”