League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 7, 2006 Election
	J. Manuel Herrera Answers Questions Candidate for Board Member; East Side Union High School District

The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How would you determine that the schools are using federal, state and local funds wisely and fairly and how would you report your findings to the community?

Funds are targeted to closing the achievement gap and are reported to the community through annual state and federal reports. Local, state, and federal funding sources are focused on meeting new state and national standards, as measured in the annual state Academic Performance Index and the federal Annual Yearly Progress report. Our school district continues to match statewide trends in terms of year-to-year progress, with the greatest challenge being meeting the needs of our English-language learners and special education students, and closing the achievement gap among Latino and African-American students.

2. Are the schools offering instruction appropriate to the diverse educational abilities of all the students?

Our school district trains staff in techniques of "differentiated instruction" to employ instructional techniques that reach ALL students.

We send trainers to each school site and train teachers to access test data for individual students, for their use in identifying areas needing individualized support and instruction.

We have a partnership with West Ed, an independent research firm, for multi-year teacher professional development program called QTELL + Quality Teachers for English Language Learners.

We have a Teacher Credentialing Program in full gear for all staff, in collaboration with the County Office of Education and others to meet the "fully qualified" requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind program.

3. Where do you want the District to be five years from now? What steps should the District take to get there?

Academic achievement and personal success for all students is the Holy Grail of public education. Five years from now our school district needs to ensure higher rates of graduation (with the California High School Exit Exam as one bar), greater success among English-language learners and special education students, and higher rates of achievement among Latino and African-American students. Our school district is pursuing targeted strategies toward these ends, as indicated in the answer to the prior question. For more information visit our school district website at http://www.esuhsd.org .

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 30, 2006 15:58
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