A Tale of Two Schools

and share a lot in common: both have English language learners making up about 30 percent of their student body, both have nearly 90 percent of student classified as "low income" and both have a large population of students who come from Five Acres, a nearby foster care institution.

But Altadena Elementary was among the most improved this year according to the state's Academic Progress Index (API) with a score of 818, while Franklin dropped 41 points to 745, among the worst drops in the district. The state's target score for schools is 800.

So what are the differences between the two schools?

For one, teacher to student ratio, according to Kathy Onoye, PUSD's executive director of elementary schools.  Altadena Elementary has federal grants that mandate that the school must maintain a maximum 20 to 1 student to teacher ratio.

Because of teacher layoffs, Franklin's ratio is now somewhere around 25 to 27 students per teacher in the K-3 grade levels, and about 33 to 1 in the upper grade levels, according to Onoye.

Another issue, according to PUSD board member Ramon Miramontes, is teacher turnover.  Franklin had 7 or 8 teachers move from the campus last year, an unsual level of turnover that may have been related to teacher layoffs creating open positions elsewhere in the district, Miramontes said.

Previous to that, Franklin had a stable group of teachers, Miramontes said.

"Franklin did, for a time, have a very consistent cohort of teachers..there was continuity," Miramontes said.

Franklin's previous scores reflect that, and actually show how fleeting a good API score can be - just two years ago it was Franklin at the top of Altadena schools with an 814 score, and Altadena Elementary behind it at 767.

For Altadena Elementary Gregory White, that is why the whole idea of evaluating a school just by state-mandated testing is a bad idea.

"State testing is just a Polaroid picture of two weeks out of the entire year," White said.

He noted that Altadena actually scored lower in 2010 than 2009, and said part of the reason was likely an unusually low level of school attendance caused by the outbreak of swine flu in the county.

He said that rather than scrutinizining test scores, his goal as a principal has been on "focusing on the whole child" and "exposing kids to as many areas as possible."

Annette Aghadjanians, the school's resource teacher, echoed White's views on testing.  She noted though that even a small drop in test scores, as the school had in 2010, can attract attention from district officials and give the impression that things are not going well.

White also said that he does not believe that Altadena's success is due to its lower student to teacher ratio, though Aghadjanians said she believes as a teacher having a smaller classroom makes a big impact.

Parent engagement at Franklin could also be an issue, said Miramontes.  He noted that last summer Franklin hosted a summer school program, the first of its kind at an Altadena school, but said when he visited he noticed that many of the kids there were attendees of .

Because of its scores, Franklin has been and the school is now going to focus more on English language instruction and organizing its classes by the level of students English proficiency.

And at Altadena Elementary, the school's improvement means teachers will continue to be able to teach the way that they have been doing in past years, which means focusing on engaging the students, not obsessing over test preparation, Aghadjanians said.

"Our teachers teach to the student," Aghadjanians said. "They don't have to teach to to the test."