preparing students for RIGOROUS standards.

Some critics said this district was setting the bar too high, but students responded well to the challenge. Now, those students are well positioned to succeed on the High School Exit Exam, even in math.

Today's students -- and parents -- often ask us, "Why the pressure for higher standards and more school work?" And our answer is, "The competition for good jobs and opportunities is far tougher than it was 30 years ago as U.S. companies clamor to import workers from other countries because our young people often cannot do the jobs available."

But beyond expecting strong performance in basic skills, our district places a strong focus on the other areas that are key to enriching students' lives into adulthood -- an understanding of civic values and the importance of giving back to the community through service; and a renewed emphasis on the arts, science, and social science so that these areas are not lost in our rush to improve performance in basic skills.

In Elk Grove we teach these skills and values to more students every year. Covering one-third of Sacramento County, our district is growing rapidly in both the number of students and the diversity of our families. We have 47,000 students this year and expect to grow to 80,000 within 10 years. We will need to build up to 39 new schools to handle that growth. And with nearly equal numbers of Latino, African American and Asian students, minorities represent more than 60 percent of our students, and one in five students is an English Language Learner. Our ELL students speak more than 70 languages and dialects.

Geometry now a graduation requirement

We are fortunate in Elk Grove to have an outstanding Board of Education, and a decade ago they had the foresight to make algebra a graduation requirement. While many people thought we were setting the bar too high, our board believed that students are far better off when they are challenged. The fact is that our students responded to these challenges and not one student has failed to graduate because of this requirement.

In fact, requiring algebra led to an increase in the number of students enrolling in geometry, and now more than 90 percent of our graduates pass geometry. That is one reason why our board felt confident in adopting geometry as a graduation requirement last January, beginning with the class of 2004. This recommendation was crafted by separate community and teacher advisory committees. And while geometry currently accounts for only a small portion of the High School Exit Exam, we believe that this new requirement will help prepare students to pass the exit exam by encouraging them to take algebra as early as possible and by emphasizing the importance of learning high-level math skills.

Our efforts to help students pass geometry mirror our efforts to help every student pass the High School Exit Exam. They include attracting qualified math teachers; teaching to our highest standards at all grade levels, including elementary and middle; and providing specialized training to staff on helping students master these requirements.

Staff training for the HSEE started in April with principals and vice principals, and continued through the summer with math and language arts teachers. The training lets teachers know which skills the exit exam will cover, and which materials teach those skills. And since students need to know far more than just what is on the exit exam, the training also emphasized the need to continue to teach to all of the state standards.

When increasing math requirements in high school, it is critical to upgrade the math curriculum in elementary and middle schools to prepare students to be successful. We updated our own district math and language arts standards at all grade levels to match the new state standards last year, and we have provided many hours of training on those standards. We also mail the standards to every parent so that they can track their child's progress.

Our teachers also review student test scores from the previous year so that their lesson plans can take into account their students' strengths and weaknesses.

While we have updated our standards, we are still waiting for new math textbooks in 2001 that will fully align with state standards. But we know we would be doing our students a disservice if we waited two years for new textbooks to be written and published.

After updating our district standards to align to the state's, our curriculum department reviewed our textbooks to see how well they matched the state standards. At some grade levels the match was less than 60 percent. To correct this problem, we created supplemental binders of materials aligned to the new standards for teachers that augmented our existing textbooks.

And this year we went a step further. We piloted several interim textbooks and, based on teachers' feedback, we purchased Math Steps, a K-6 workbook that does an even better job of supplementing our textbooks to cover all of the math standards. The series was selected based on extensive focus groups with teachers.

We will also pilot several math textbook series this year that fully match the state standards to gather input from teachers and parents. A similar pilot program two years ago in more than 120 classrooms led to strong teacher support for our Open Court language arts program in grades K-3. Open Court has paid off in dramatically stronger student performance in the primary grades.

By piloting several series throughout the district, including schools in affluent and poor neighborhoods, we can collect test data on which series serve all of our students. Our board will select a new series next spring, and we will then offer specialized training to every teacher who will use the series.

Involving the community

In Elk Grove we believe it is crucial to involve parents and the community in raising academic standards. We work closely with our community on the need for all students to learn 21st century skills, and on the need for students to push themselves in school.

And I'm proud to say that our community has responded. Once again the work starts early. By working with our teachers and our parents, we have developed accelerated learning programs at all 29 of our elementary schools. These programs are not just for "gifted" students. Instead, they offer a much broader range of students an opportunity to learn topics in more depth and at a greater pace than the normal classroom. The programs also help prepare them for honors and AP courses in middle and high school. And since parent involvement is so critical to student success, the parents of children enrolling in these programs are asked to sign contracts committing that they will help their children do the extra work required.

Right now about one-third of our students take algebra in middle school, and that number is increasing each year. Additionally, we offer AP and honors courses in math, physics and chemistry as well as many other subjects. The number of students taking AP courses and those required for college have increased more than 100 percent in the past few years.

We also worked hard this year to redeploy our Title 1 funds at grades four through six to reduce class sizes from 34 to one to 24 to one. We believe this will have a tremendous payoff Also, we now offer a world language -- Japanese or Spanish -- beginning in kindergarten in several of our elementary schools. We plan to expand this program in the future.

Quality teachers are the heart of our program. We are fortunate to attract outstanding teachers to Elk Grove, but since we hire 300-500 new teachers every year, it is a constant challenge. And we are full partners with our outstanding teachers' association -- the Elk Grove Education Association -- which stands side by side with us in working to improve instruction.

To help us find qualified teachers in hard-to-find areas, we used part of our 1999 Lottery funds to create $2,500 "signing bonuses" to credentialed teachers in areas like math, physical sciences, special education and world languages. The program proved so successful -- including attracting teachers from out-of-state -- that we expanded it this year.

Fast-track credentials 

Another program that has helped us groom top quality teachers is our Teacher Education Institute, a credential program offered through a partnership with San Francisco State University. This fast-track program, which lasts 11 months, trains teachers to our Elk Grove standards and benchmarks, doubles the amount of in-classroom training -- 1,200 rather than 600 hours -- compared to traditional programs, and, just as importantly, provides critical one-on-one support to people learning the profession. We have hired most of the 400 teachers who have graduated from our program, and I'm pleased to say that nearly all of them continue to work in our district.

Longevity for teachers and principals is often overlooked when talking about preparing students for high-level skills. Experienced teachers know how to teach to different learning styles, and principals who have a stable staff are better able to focus on academics and supporting teachers in the classroom than principals who are constantly dealing with turnover and the low morale it can create. Our district also works hard to support and train school leaders, and this pays big dividends.

When looking at stakeholders in the exit exam, it is important to inform and involve parents early. Last summer we published a column about the exit exam in our local newspapers, included articles about the test in our parent handbook that we mailed to every family in our district, mailed the column to every parent in our district through our parent newsletter, and we will soon mail a letter from me to all parents who have students in the ninth grade and younger about the exit exam. Additionally, we held a press conference at the start of the school year on what we are doing now to prepare this year's freshmen to pass the exam.

We will also be urging all freshmen to take the test next spring, even though they are not required to do so. This will give each of them and their parents an understanding of what the test is like and what they will need to do to pass if they fail either portion. Just as importantly, it will provide us a clear picture of how well our students are prepared so we will know what areas we need to focus on long before the students in the Class of 2004 become seniors.

Experience with high stakes tests

Teaching to California's standards and preparing for the exit exam is a huge task for school districts, but we welcome the challenge and want our students to become experienced with high stakes tests. They will face many more high stakes tests after they leave our system -- whether that would be a bar exam or a job interview -- and we can help them succeed if we all work together.

We're very proud of our fine staff, our community and the progress our students have made to date. But we still can and will do much more. My own daughter, her husband and my granddaughter Natalie recently moved to our district. It triggered in my mind the question we should ask of ourselves every day -- "What would I want for my child or grandchild?"

David W. Gordon is superintendent of Elk Grove Unified School District and a member of the HSEE advisory panel.