Fresno Unified School District's failure to meet standardized test score requirements will cost the district more than $2 million in state funding next year, according to county and school district officials.

Sequoia, Tehipite and Yosemite middle schools and Lane Elementary School will be booted from the state's Quality Education Investment Act program at the end of this school year. The four schools missed test score targets and will be cut off from millions in annual funding that they've gotten through the program since 2007.

The $2.2 million from QEIA this year paid for 26 teachers at the four schools. Next year, that money -- and those jobs -- will be gone.

View QEIA schools, Fresno Unified School District in a larger map

Although Fresno Unified says QEIA was more trouble that it was worth, critics say FUSD botched the program that has helped hundreds of schools improve. That includes an elementary school in neighboring Central Unified as well as schools in Mendota, Parlier and Coalinga-Huron.

Although official notification hasn't yet come from the state Department of Education, "we won't see funding come back for them," said Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson.

The program provides about $3 billion statewide over seven years to low-performing schools with low-income, minority and English-learner students. Schools are required to reduce class sizes, hire and train experienced teachers and improve Academic Performance Index scores -- the state's measurement of school performance, based on student test results.

QEIA provided almost $12 million, most of which pays to employ 118 teachers, to 18 Fresno Unified schools this school year.

Fresno is not the only district statewide with schools failing to meet program requirements. The California Teachers Association says about 75 of the 500 or so QEIA schools in the state will be dropped from the program -- but the Department of Education says there will likely be many more.

Fresno Unified already had one school dropped from QEIA. McLane High, one of five schools dropped from the program to date, was getting $2.4 million from QEIA that funded more than 20 teachers. But the school was dropped from the program at the end of the 2010-11 school year because it failed to meet testing requirements, said Kathryn Catania with the Fresno County Office of Education.

Hanson said that although the district could use the extra funding, he is somewhat relieved to have fewer schools in what he says is a complicated program that was difficult to implement and even more of a hassle to keep up.

"We've been on a hamster wheel doing things that we think aren't good for kids," Hanson said.

He blames the program's poor design and demanding administrative duties, which he said can be counterproductive to teaching. The time and energy the district dedicated to keeping up with program requirements got in the way of student learning -- as was evident in the schools' failure to improve test scores, he said.

Hanson isn't alone with his criticism -- the program has been panned in other districts for its emphasis on smaller classes, which some educators say doesn't do much for student achievement, and the Legislative Analyst's Office has questioned whether the money spent has produced the desired outcomes.

Hanson says he is not too worried about losing the $2.2 million, even in a budget year that could see $4.8 billion slashed from education statewide if the governor's tax plan fails.

"I think when you stop worrying about a very narrowly defined program and ... you start to more flexibly look at what you're doing for kids, options will avail themselves," he said.