Features

SACRAMENTO — A judge ruled Friday against Sacramento teachers who challenged the rules for Gov. Gray Davis’ most lucrative rewards program for test-score improvements. 

About 30 teachers from Jedediah Smith Elementary in the Sacramento City Unified School District filed the lawsuit last winter, saying a requirement for two years of improvement was unfair. 

The lawsuit led the state to hold up the rewards, which range from $5,000 to $25,000 per teacher for the $100 million Certificated Staff Performance Incentive Act. 

Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian gave the teachers time to appeal, so the money cannot be distributed for the next 60 days. 

The money is expected to go to teachers and administrators in about 200 elementary schools, 50 middle schools and 30 high schools in the bottom half of the state’s scores that improved the most between 1999 and 2000, state education officials said Friday. 

Last summer, the state Board of Education approved rules for the rewards that also required test scores to have improved between 1998 and 1999. 

Eligibility for the large reward should be based on more than one year of improvement, the board determined. 

“This requirement serves the educational needs of children in the state’s most underachieving schools,” Marsha Bedwell, the state Department of Education general counsel, said Friday. 

Jedediah Smith’s Academic Performance Index, based on scores from the statewide test, went up 147 points in 2000, one of the state’s highest increases. However, the school’s test scores did not rise between 1998 and 1999. 

Michael White, the attorney for the teachers, argued that the 1999 law creating the program didn’t require schools to improve between 1998 and 1999, but that rule was added after the fact by the board. 

The Sacramento district asked the state board for a waiver to allow the school’s teachers to be eligible for the rewards.  

The board last week rejected that request and a similar one for Vista High School in San Diego County.