Unable to find any repeatable, significant or sustained progress in the scores of federal and state education programs costing billions of dollars, evaluators have taken to looking for an iota of hope. Any improvement will do to justify the effort, expenditure and the employment of unending legions of policy wonks, analysts and administrators – none of whom go anywhere near a classroom.
A report on performance improvement (called P.I. in government lingo) pointed out that intense aid from a dedicated team of experts – at the appropriate expense – resulted in an improvement of a few percentage points of one standard deviation and that might not be repeatable.
Does that sort of accomplishment justify the proposal to spend $22.6 million – one-third of the San Benito High School Facilities Bond with soft costs, and $3.5 million from the state, a total of $26 million – just for sports?
If you think the state money is free consider this: Right now some high school you never heard of is considering building their own athletic Taj Mahal and they are telling their voters: “Don’t worry, the state will pick up part of the bill.” Their taxpayers are “the state” to us – while our taxpayers are “the state” to them.
The question at hand is, what should be the priority for education funding in underperforming schools?
One can start by looking at the academic performance of San Benito High School. According to state records, we stink. The fact that other schools also stink is a poor excuse. Now I’m sure your child does not stink, but someone’s kids keep failing the proficiency tests because they had a bad day, the system can’t really test basic academic skills, or the school does not want to teach the test. Or … just pick any excuse.
SBHS went on a 5-year Performance Improvement Plan in 2009-2010. At the time, the target for school-wide proficiency percentage in English Language Arts was a mere 55.6%. If only slightly more than half the students were proficient, we would have made the target; we came close at 51.4%.
However, the goal was to improve, so the target went up as every year – 66.7%, 77.8% and finally 88.9%. Our proficiency also went up, a tiny bit – 63.0%, 54.4% and 57.5%. We were closer to the target when we started than we are now; improving 6% in four years, 1.5% a year on average, meanwhile, the target is up over 33%. The result in mathematics was essentially the same, except the current proficiency level is only 52%.
To no one’s surprise, the most serious problems exist in the Hispanic-Latino, socioeconomically disadvantaged, English-learner populations, which is all one group for practical purposes. However, if you think the white kids are excelling at San Benito High, think again. One-quarter of them were not proficient in English and one-third was not proficient in math.
Athletics are an important component of the high school experience, but they must be secondary to education, especially for underperforming institutions. We have been told at every turn that the education system does not deliver because it’s underfunded, but when the education experts got a chance to make out their wish list they did not go for more sorely needed bio-, math, or language labs, or library services.
They went for athletics.
Well, athletics teach one good thing that these folks need to learn. If you want to get a hit, you have to keep your eye on the ball. And this plan has struck out.
