ON THE TOWN:It’s clear that drastic fixes are needed

If you have children in the district or if you are even mildly concerned about the quality of the education our kids are receiving, you may want to consider reading the excellent five-part series by Daily Pilot education reporter Michael Miller. Miller’s in-depth analysis of the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act concluded Tuesday, but you can find it online.

Reading more about the federal standards and the district, it is clear that the problems run deeper than the progress of Wilson Elementary, Pomona Elementary and TeWinkle Middle schools, the three schools that are in the final stages of No Child Left Behind compliance.

The list of schools that are in trouble is not a surprise: Every one is in Costa Mesa.

That this verifies something that this writer and many others have known for years is no consolation. The schools in Costa Mesa, particularly on the city’s Westside, have been ignored by your school board for years. Now, the chickens have come home to roost.

Of the many suggestions recently made by an independent panel, one of them stands out. At Wilson the panel suggested single-gender classrooms.

Hallelujah. At last, there is an indication that the education establishment is at least taking a look at doing something other than the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.

Whether those classes are ever developed is another story, but at least the language has been made official. And no, I don’t mind telling you that I suggested that in this space a very long time ago.

Unfortunately, some of the Costa Mesa schools debate got sidetracked in recent days due to my error in reporting the first name of board member Michael Collier. I apologize for the error, which was simply the result of doing two things at once.

That mistake has been used by a few to put the spotlight on me, rather than take the hard road and address the real issue, that is, that there is no plan to rescue these schools.

In fact, at the last board meeting, there were a couple of feeble attempts to blame the schools’ poor performance on other things. As I reported, there were three condemnations of No Child Left Behind from the dais, as though this law suddenly arose last week.

The fact is that these schools were floundering long before No Child Left Behind.

The other was a report from the dais that the three buses that were supposed to pick up parents and bring them to last week’s meeting did not pick up any passengers.

The implication was that the parents in the three schools do not care enough about their children’s education to take a free ride to a school board meeting to discuss the schools.

So instead of hearing solutions, we heard more excuses.

I have a suggestion for this board. If you are truly interested in getting local parental input on the three schools, take the time to understand your audience. Costa Mesa is not Newport Beach. These are two-income families, with many parents working two jobs in order to make ends meet.

At the end of the day, they are tired and still have their household chores in front of them as well as the usual family issues we all have. So instead of asking them to take a bus somewhere at the end of a long day, you ought to try getting off your dais and taking your meeting to the school to report the panel’s findings. That is, if you are really as interested in parental input as you say you are. I realize the board had hearings for parental input at the three schools, but the board members should have also held meetings at those schools to report the panel’s findings.

The other comment I am seeing online and hearing as well is that these schools would all do well if only we shipped most of the kids and their families back to Mexico.

To those people who see an illegal immigrant anytime they see someone with brown skin, I can only suggest that perhaps you would do well to channel your anger in a more positive way because I’m pleased to tell you that the overwhelming majority of the Latino kids attending Costa Mesa schools are American citizens.

And even if you could see your fondest wish come true and ship every illegal immigrant back home, the Costa Mesa schools would still need drastic changes in order to improve.

Not much of a Valentine’s Day column, I know. But the schoolkids in Costa Mesa aren’t exactly feeling the educational love right now.