Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

One parent who pulled her son from Oak Grove and sent him to Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill called it "The Great White Flight."

Kristy Caldwell's two children, who attend the high-performing Bancroft Elementary in Walnut Creek, would attend Oak Grove, and that deeply concerns her.

"I'm not prejudiced, (but) the school became English-as-a-second-language, " she said. "You would be taking my kids from a great environment to a ghetto environment where they're struggling with other needs ... The test scores at Oak Grove are terrible."

Families flee school's sinking scores
'Underperforming' label exacerbates problem in Concord
- Carrie Sturrock, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Oak Grove Middle School has low state test scores, and for many parents -- and teachers -- that's all they need to know.

It doesn't matter that the Concord school once was honored as a California Distinguished School and has classes for gifted and talented students, a state-of-the-art technology program and even a psychologist on campus to support the kids.

What matters is that widely publicized state test scores and the federal No Child Left Behind Act have labeled the school underperforming, giving parents a reason to leave. Enrollment has dropped from 915 last year to 750, and the parents of another 180 students have requested transfers by the fall. The act also has figured in the loss of 40 teachers in recent years, Principal Lorie O'Brien said.

"The court of public opinion has not served us well," she said. "When these labels first became part of our lives, a tremendous amount of (my) time went into being a counselor. It took a lot for people to come to terms with that."

The flight of well-prepared students from once-well-regarded schools such as Oak Grove is happening across the nation as a consequence of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, educators say. The schools fail to meet state and federal accountability standards often because they're struggling to teach low-scoring students who are learning English after immigrating to the United States, said Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C., an advocacy organization for more effective public schools which has studied the effects of the federal law.

Jennings and other education experts say that as the schools' test scores spiral downward, it's not uncommon for the more educated families to pull their kids out, increasing the percentage of low-scoring students and making it even more difficult to raise the scores. As a result, the schools -- which range from suburban ones such as Oak Grove to urban campuses -- lose per-pupil funding and the benefits of parents with the time and resources to get involved.

Educators say that while No Child Left Behind has benefits, such as English learners getting more attention than ever before, schools get labels that are hard to shake.

"(At) schools that are so labeled, sometimes teachers feel they're being blamed unfairly, and sometimes teachers are looking for ways to leave," Jennings said. "Sometimes the better-educated parents take advantage of the school choice option."

Oak Grove has always had a mix of students from blue- and white-collar families who live in Concord and more affluent Walnut Creek. In 1996, the state named it a California Distinguished School for its exemplary teaching and high standards.

But in the seven years since the first of the state's new test scores -- which the federal law uses to gauge a school's performance -- the school has seen a marked shift in its demographics: The Hispanic population -- which is largely from the Monument Boulevard area in Concord -- has jumped from 27 to 52 percent, while the white population has dropped from 57 to 30 percent, according to the state Department of Education.