SCHOOLS : Statewide Test Scores for Seniors Contain Good News, Bad News

There was both good news and bad for Orange County high schools after the second year of statewide testing for seniors’ abilities in reading, written expression, spelling and math.

Of the 15 districts in Orange County that operate high schools, seven showed across-the-board improvement: Saddleback Unified, Placentia Unified, Los Alamitos Unified, Orange Unified, Garden Grove Unified, Fullerton Joint Union High School District and Huntington Beach Union High School District.

Four other districts--Anaheim Union High School, Irvine Unified, Laguna Beach Unified and Capistrano Unified--improved in three of the four categories.

But four districts showed declines in all categories: Brea-Olinda Unified, Newport-Mesa Unified, Tustin Unified and Santa Ana Unified.

The declines in Tustin, Newport-Mesa and Brea-Olinda may only signify a natural plateau for districts that have had years of rising test scores, officials in those districts said. This year’s results, though declining, are still considerably above the statewide average.

Santa Ana Unified traditionally suffers in the testing because of its large numbers of non-English-speaking students. “There was an overall decline in only a couple of points,” said one district official.