A BILL WE'RE WATCHING

The California State Assembly’s Senate Appropriations Committee is considering a bill, today, that would change the way the state measures performance of schools that cater primarily to former dropouts. The measure would allow certain schools to measure student performance based on an “individual pupil growth model” in lieu of other measures used to determine a school’s progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Ernie Silva, the Director of External Affairs for the California-based School for Integrated Academics and Technologies, a dropout recovery program that drafted the bill that Assemblywoman Wilma Carter is championing, said the current standards don’t adequately measure the performance of schools like SIATech. Siva said measuring schools like his against traditional high schools is comparing apple to oranges. “Our students are coming and going at a much higher rate than traditional high schools students and they’re coming in far below grade level,” Silva said. But “standardized testing depends on all students being present on a fixed schedule,” according to Carter’s bill. “The use of competency-based and open entry strategies result in dropout recovery students not being in school at the time that the standardized tests are administered.” On paper, that can make it look like a school is failing to meet federal and state standards. But Silva noted that his program has an excellent track record of getting students to graduation. Since 1998, more than 10,000 students, all previously designated as dropouts, have earned an accredited diploma from SIATech, according to the non-profit’s Website.