School Wise Press SARC Services

SARC BITE 26 | OCTOBER 8 , 2004

SARCs Get Attention from Higher-Ups: Compliance Ramps Up

Accountability reporting has stepped into the limelight. Governor Schwarzenegger cited School Accountability Report Cards (SARCs) while vetoing a bill that would have implemented the Opportunity to Learn Index. No need for new disclosures, declared the governor. SARCs, he said, cover most of what the public needs to know. The governor and legislators also put SARCs center stage when drafting SB550, the bill (now law) that brings the Williams lawsuit settlement into the Education Code. As a result, the SARCs of schools with low APIs (schools falling in deciles 1, 2 or 3 — roughly 30 percent of schools in the state) will be audited every year. It's clear that district leaders will now need to take SARCs more seriously.

The county offices of education will be performing these annual audits during the first four weeks of school, starting next year. The audits cover four areas: teachers, textbooks, facilities, and SARCs. This is a massive job, all to be run on a budget of $3,000 per school. The county offices will no doubt be doing a lot of recruiting and training over the coming year. Read the particulars of SB550.

THESE SARC AUDITS HAVE TEETH

These SARC audits come with teeth. Schools that fail to pass thire SARC audit will lose their right to reimbursement until the flaws are fixed. (Of course, this is predicated upon the state's coffers allowing for funds to flow at all.) Schools will have until May to fix any problems with their accountability reports. Once the SARC problems are fixed, reimbursable funds will be freed up (theoretically).

The specific elements of a field audit for SARCs are not yet spelled out in the law. But you can be sure those legislators concerns with accuracy, timeliness, language equity, dissemination, understandability, and thoroughness will all be included in the audit guidelines.

THE POLITICS BEHIND THE LEGISLATION

The Williams lawsuit settlement was, in part, intended to expose the facts about substandard schools: teachers working out-of-field, buildings suffering from long-deferred maintenance, students asked to learn without textbooks. The disclosure of these facts is supposed to have been required in annual accountability reports. But as the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Williams lawsuit noted, SARCs are too often in sorry shape. The same districts that tolerate substandard teaching, buildings, and textbooks are also likely to publish SARCs that are substandard, as well. False declarations in SARCs, unfortunately, often pass unnoticed by citizens, who often can't find the reports because their districts keep them hidden in the far corners of their websites and refrain from printing them at all. The first step in settling the Williams lawsuit is to air the facts — however ugly — in the light of day. Only once the facts are out in the sunshine can substandard, inadequate conditions be remedied.

COMPLIANCE MONITORING RAMPS UP

The CDE unit responsible for SARCs already has the legal responsibility to monitor compliance under the terms of SB1632. Their monitoring efforts are triggered by citizens complaints and by periodic spot audits. When I checked with Joe Radding, who handles much of the SARC work for the head of this unit, Rachel Perry, he clarified via email how they monitor compliance.

"The CDE's staff provides LEAs with ongoing technical assistance to ensure compliance with SARC requirements. Not only are any and all complaints about non-existent or non-compliant SARCs investigated and addressed promptly. CDE staff also periodically verifies the existence and content of a small sample of SARCs that are posted on LEA Web sites. With 9,300 schools and only two staff members assigned to the SARC, a great deal is accomplished with limited resources."

Staff cuts at the CDE haven't made it easy for them to do as thorough a job as they ' d like. It seems a shame that the Williams legislation missed the chance to bring more funding to this CDE team already responsible for monitoring compliance, not just of decile 1, 2 and 3 schools, but of all of them — and not just at the start of the year (wrong time, of course), but year-round.

Governor Schwarzenegger and the state legislature are now counting on the county offices to police SARCs with more rigor and vigor. Given that the county offices were facing a death sentence under the California Performance Review only months ago, this new assignment — policing districts — is likely to be one they embrace. Watchdog advocacy groups and community nonprofits are now more alert to what SARCs should include. Legislators have been alerted to the risk of substandard schools in their districts. Reporters steeped in the traditions of open government and alert to the hot buttons of the Williams lawsuit are more likely to compare and contrast the realities of public schools with the facts those schools present in their SARCs. If there was ever a time to get your district leaderships attention on SARCs, this is it.