Overall, the schools have improved by a total of 4.5 (which includes the low performer), or about 7.5% over three years. The greatest amount of improvement came from Computer Assisted Learning, but that school, Lincoln, was already the high performer. Media and parental concerns over scores are certainly reasonable and understandable. No stakeholder wishes to see scores decline. However, some major issues revolve around some of the politics in this situation:

Three years may not be enough time to statistically validate the data or the trend; even though it appears on the surface that the decentralization plan works for most schools.

Support of the plan is essential for it to have a chance to work. The lack of cooperative judgements at Clark shows in the score decline...

Whether there is strong agreement or not, Clark is part of the District and should follow District policy. Packard should spend some time at Clark and at Clark's administrative meetings, as should curriculum administrators.
To mitigate media concern, Packard should point out that the District's overall scores are up just shy of 10%, and if the reporter insists on looking at a microcosm of data, the data shows improvement, not decline.

Frankly, Packard might consider transferring principals - placing someone at Clark who will be more forward thinking and progressive.