USD Magazine, Winter 2003

reform efforcs, some new funding is becom– ing available and educators say there is a renewed willingness among politicians and the public to rake on the challenges. Good Schools, Bad Schools At San Diego's Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School, students are learning. The campus ranks first in San Diego County with a score of 936 points out of a possible 1,000 on the 2002 Academic Performance Index, che cornerstone of a statewide education account– ability system chat measures school growth and academic performance. At the bottom end of the scale is Beyer Elementary School in the border town of San Ysidro. Students there scored a dismal 498 on the API, which is based on performance on the Sranford-9 and California Standards achievement tests in basic skills such as lan– guage arts, science and math. There's a story behind the test scores. Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School sics in one of San Diego's most prestigious com– munities, where the median family income

is $95,000. In San Ysidro, the median family income is $32,000. How much money a district receives - rhe bulk of it from property taxes - generally dictates the quality of its schools and teachers. In Rancho Santa Fe, supplies are ample, teachers are experi– enced and resources allow for

to acknowledge that public education has good and bad components, and that the whole system is not falling apart.

With headlines like chis, ir looks like read– ing, writing and arithmetic are going to hell in a handbasker. Bur it's nor quire true. Yes, there are some serious problems with public schools. But teachers and USD education expercs say it's unfair for the media and pub– lic to lump all the problems together in a blanker condemnation of the entire system. And even if the criticisms were fair, rhe sys– tem is nor going away. Despite the excitement over alternatives such as private school vouch– ers and home schooling, public education is still responsible for teaching more than 90 percent of school-aged children, some 50 million kids. If we really want our children co learn, it's clear chat public education is the place co scare. The first seep in creating better schools, many experrs say, is to acknowledge chat pub– lic education, like any system, has good and bad components, and chat the whole system is not falling apart. Jaime Romo, USD assistant professor of education, compares the struc– ture co a family.

"You've got superstars, and then you have the ones chat seem to bring shame to the fam– ily," Romo says. "There are a lot of schools at the extremes, and a lot ofschools in between." If he were to grade the fragmented system, Romo says he'd give it a D . He won't assign a failing mark, but, like many educators, he says he won't bring up chat grade until every member of the family is happy and healthy. So what are the real problems with our public schools, and how do we fix chem? The question is simple, the answers often daunting and complex. For decades, educa– tors, policymakers and parents have struggled to improve public education. There is no magic solution, but it now appears chat the time is ripe to resolve many of rhe issues, as increasing public scrutiny has resulted in new

extra classes in subjects like music and art. Parents there have sec up an endowment fund to pay for extras like extended kindergarten hours, training for teachers and special inter– est classes. In San Ysidro, overwhelmed young instruc– tors try to teach the basics while worrying that their students haven't had enough co eat, and knowing that parents usually are coo busy working co check on the academic progress of their children. In short, teachers with experience are able to pass over working at poor schools, which then have to rely on emergency-credentialed or novice teachers. "Teachers are the most significant factor relating co a student's success," Romo says. "When kids don't have experienced teachers

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USD M AG AZ I N E