California schools earning test scores of 800 or higher, either by fiat or by political reckoning, are supposed to be desirable learning emporiums — except, the state Legislature ruled last week, for Lin Howe Elementary School in Culver City.
After the legislators passed the Open Enrollment Act earlier this year — allowing students to freely transfer from undeniably bad schools into better ones — the ladies and gentlemen from Sacramento decided further more step was required:
The bad schools needed to be fingered for all to observe, scorn and for lucky parents to presumably say, “I am glad my child is not enrolled there.”
Except when the list of the Undesirable 1,000 was released last week, Lin Howe’s name was plumped there in neon brilliance.
Lin Howe’s test scores were at 804. Like all other schools in Culver City, Lin Howe was above the demarcation line that separates achievers from Those People.
The intended effect of the negative designation is to inform families of these supposedly deprived students that they can transfer their children to another school that the Legislature, arbitrarily, smiles upon.
How could that be? School Board Vice President Scott Zeidman was asked. He was confounded.
“I have no idea how the Legislature reached this conclusion,” he said. “Lin Howe made the list because they used a formula to determine the Bottom 1,000 that does not actually determine the Bottom 1,000.
“Common sense would say that you take the bottom whatever-number and identify them by their test scores. But you can’t have a Bottom 1,000 school with test scores higher than schools that are not on the list — except for now you can.”
According to Mr. Zeidman, the legislators needed to find a way to reach the Worst 1,000 — even if there were not 1,000, and not too many from a single district because that would damage a district’s — ad possibly a certain legislator’s — reputation.
“Lin Howe is a great school,” the father of two said. “If I lived in the area, I would love for my children to go to school here.”
At next Tuesday’s 7 o’clock Board meeting on Irving Place, Mr. Zeidman intends to make a motion to petition Sacramento to grant a waiver to Lin Howe on the grounds that it accomplished a passing score not a failing score in the test scores category.
