10 S.D. Schools to Cash In on Test Results

Mira Mesa High School looks like the big money winner. Other prize winners, in no particular order, are Lincoln, Serra, University City, San Diego, Point Loma, Mission Bay, Morse, Muir Alternative and Gompers high schools.

Madison High, meanwhile, finished out of the money, as did La Jolla, Patrick Henry, Clairemont, Crawford, Hoover, Kearny, O’Farrell, Twain and Garfield highs.

Those are some of the preliminary, unofficial results of the first “Cash for CAP” sweepstakes--a novel, mildly controversial $15-million state program that rewards high schools for improving performances on the standardized California Assessment Program (CAP) tests.

While the state won’t officially announce the prize-winning schools and the size of their awards until mid-April, preliminary data from the CAP tests taken by 12th-graders in December indicates that “Cash for CAP”--formally titled the Education Improvement Incentive Program Awards--has had some positive results.

“Cash for CAP,” the brainchild of state Sen. Leroy F. Greene (D-Sacramento), provides extra revenue for schools that have at least 93% of their students take the CAP test and show overall improvement on their score from the previous year. Schools that show no improvement, or fail to reach the 93% threshold, get nothing.

Greene said Monday that results of last semester’s CAP indicate that 548 of the state’s 1,213 high schools appear to have qualified for a share in the program’s bounty.

By comparison, in the previous year, only 60 schools met the “Cash for CAP” criteria.

Educators suggest that the jump from 60 schools to 548 schools reflects mostly an increase in the number of schools reaching the 93% threshold, and improving scores to a lesser degree.

To Greene, the dramatic increase could only be attributed to “Cash for CAP.” “It was obvious this thing would get a response,” he said.

The legislator recalled that when he introduced the program, some educators were offended by the suggestion that they weren’t doing their best to make sure as many students as possible took the CAP test.

“They were outraged . . . but they should have had the 93% all the time,” Greene said. “When they didn’t have the money on the table, they didn’t strain so hard.”

In the San Diego Unified School District, the number of students taking the CAP test climbed substantially over previous years, officials said. Ninety-six percent of eligible seniors took the test last semester; in previous years, about 87% or 88% of the district’s seniors turned out for the CAP tests. (District officials said they did not consider 87% to be a low figure because the statewide average had been about 81%.)

Supt. Thomas Payzant and Grant Behnke of the district’s testing and evaluation office attributed the high turnout last semester to principals and teachers placing a greater emphasis on the test, partly because of “Cash for CAP.”

Moreover, the fact that tests had to be proctored by non-district employees--a requirement of Greene’s program--brought out scores of volunteers, often parents and retired educators, and provided “a real big push” to the testing process, Payzant said.

Payzant said he had “mixed feelings” about “Cash for CAP.”

“I think it’s fine for the short term, and it apparently has been successful in getting people to pay attention to getting a large number of students to take the test,” he said. “But I fear that if it continues over a long period of time, then people will perhaps be motivated for the wrong reasons.”

Properly, he said, educators should not be motivated by extra revenues, but the goal of making students “better prepared for higher education and the world of work.”

Told of Payzant’s comments, Greene responded, “That’s educator talk. I don’t know anything about life that is not competitive . . . Well, fine. I mean, he doesn’t care what his salary is?”

San Diego schools provided a range of examples to test the merits of “Cash for CAP.” For example, Crawford, Hoover and Kearny all experienced drops in their test scores--but Behnke suggested those drops might be attributable to substantial influxes of students with limited English skills.

“If somebody gets a boat load of kids from Southeast Asia, I say to them, what about the next year?” Greene said. A school that suffers a one-year slide in test performance would be in better position to improve their scores the following year and benefit from the program, he explained. “Cash for CAP” money will be doled out on the basis of the number of students and the degree of improvement. By the school district’s reckoning, Mira Mesa figures to reap the greatest reward; not only is it the largest high school, but it had greater CAP score improvement than every district school except Muir Alternative, which had only 14 seniors taking the test.

It isn’t clear how much Mira Mesa stands to receive. If the $15 million in the program, minus administrative costs, was divided equally among the state’s 548 high schools, each would receive about $25,000 to spend on equipment, books and supplies. Mira Mesa figures to get more--perhaps much more. And Muir Alternative will get less.

By contrast, Madison is a school that figures to receive no money. Chuck Raliegh, Madison’s principal, said he had no theories why the school’s scores went down. “Beats the heck out of me,” he said.

While some educators believe money used in “Cash for CAP” would be better spent on schools where test scores are falling--and thus, presumably, need help--Raliegh said he was nonetheless comfortable with the program.

“I’m not disappointed the other schools are getting the money,” he said. “We worked hard, but it looks like we need to work harder.”

Greene said he believed, like Payzant, that “Cash for CAP” perhaps will work better as a short-term approach than a long-term policy. He wrote a provision into the bill requiring the program to be halted unless there is 3% improvement in the statewide CAP within four years.

But if the program proves to be a success, Greene said, he may also seek to have it applied for CAP testing for 3rd- and 6th-graders.

Apart from “Cash for CAP,” overall results of the CAP tests “are very encouraging,” Payzant said.

These points were highlighted in a district report:

- San Diego 12th-graders showed improvement in every test area--reading, written expression, spelling and mathematics-- compared to the previous year. Districtwide, the percent of correct answers climbed from 63 to 63.8 in reading, 62.7 to 63.5 in written expression, 69.7 to 69.8 in spelling, and 69.7 to 70.6 in mathematics. This was especially encouraging, Payzant said, in light of the high turnout for the test; many educators had theorized that students who are apt to miss tests are below average students, and their appearance would tend to pull scores down.

- The improvement in reading represented a reversal of a trend. The district’s 12th-grade reading scores had been falling since 1979-80, but appeared to be leveling off last year. In other subject areas, scores have been going up since 1982-83. For many years, the district has recorded especially high scores in math.

Statewide results will be announced later this week. The San Diego district has scored above the statewide average in every test area over the last two years.