A quick glance at the numbers in the Student Accountability Report Card from the Centinela Valley Union High School District raises a lot of questions on California education policy.
Each year federal and California taxpayer money are directed to underperforming schools to ensure a quality education for all students. The historic lawsuit Serrano vs. Priest, the Williams lawsuit settlement of 2004, the Assumption Programs of Loans for Education, and the Public School Accountability Act of 1999 all were combined to offer students in such schools a chance to perform better in school.
The Centinela Valley district, near LAX and Manhattan Beach, serves three high schools: Hawthorne, Leuzinger and Lawndale. The numbers from Leuzinger and Hawthorne High School contrasts greatly from neighboring schools, a poor reflection on California education policy.
Schools are measured on a barometer known as the Academic Performance Index, with the API on a scale of 200 to 1,000 -- 1,000 being the top.
For 2008-2009, Hawthorne High received a 2 based on its API score. Leuzinger High received a rank of 1, and Lawndale received a laudable 7. No more than a 15-minute drive away, El Segundo High, in a coastal city, is ranked a 10 based on its API. At Mira Costa High, which serves the residents of Manhattan Beach, the API rank is also 10. At the opposite direction, away from the beach, Torrance High is ranked an 8 based on its API.
The most striking number of all in the high school report card is the 1,273 cases of suspension in 2007-08 from Leuzinger - compared to 508 cases for 2008-09. Districtwide, Centinela Valley logged 2,106 suspensions for 2007-08, dropping to 932 suspensions in 2008-09.
First, it’s important to note that the everyday lives of students at Centinela Valley differ greatly from their peers enrolled in neighboring districts. At all three of the Centinela high schools, three-quarters of the population qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches. At Hawthorne and Leuzinger, a quarter of the students are English learners. Some do not have parents who speak fluent English, who could help them with their homework. Others may have to take on a job to add to household income, even as they struggle with school work.
According to city-data.com, the city of Hawthorne has a greater number of people living in it with an education level less than a high school diploma and fewer people with a bachelor’s degree than your “average” California city.
Nonetheless, the results posted from these high schools are a cause for concern. The previous year, only 19 percent of the students at Leuzinger were proficient on the English-Language Arts exam on the Star Program (Standarized Testing and Reporting). On the math portion of the test, only 14 percent showed proficiency.
What has been the effect of California's education policy on underperforming schools?
I was originally a resident of the LAX area, before moving to Orange County, where I received my bachelor's degree in political science and journalism at Cal State Fullerton. I am now a full-time freelance writer who has covered a broad range of topics from local news to water policy.
Here are some questions I hope to answer in this article:
An article on the reasons behind the 508 cases of suspension at Leuzinger High School last year, and the 1,273 suspensions from the 2007-2008 school year at Leuzinger High.
I would like to dig into why these students are being suspended, what the school district and administrators at Leuzinger High School are doing about this, and tie this into the big picture of academic performance at Leuzinger.
