Elementary School Tests Show Gains : Scores Up Also for Pupils Speaking Limited English

Orange County elementary schools continue to show improvement in basic academic skills, with surprising gains among limited-English-speaking students, according to state test scores released Tuesday.

Santa Ana Unified School District, Orange County’s largest and one with large concentrations of pupils speaking limited English, was among the biggest gainers countywide in the annual California Assessment Program scoring.

“Educators in Orange County in general are continuing to emphasize the fundamentals, and that is showing up in the results,” said Robert Peterson, Orange County superintendent of schools.

Tests Given in Spring

“These (improved) results are coming about even though the county has more than 1,000 new, non-English-speaking students each September. Really, it’s amazing that we do as well as we are,” Peterson said.

The CAP tests are given every spring in grades three, six and eight, and results are released in the fall.

In the third and sixth grades, students are tested in reading, written expression and mathematics. In the eighth grade, a history-social science test was added in 1984-85 and a science test in 1985-86. Thus, there are no previous scores to compare to this year’s science test.

Most Orange County school districts usually show well above the statewide test average, and that annual pattern remained unbroken in the 1985-86 Orange County results. In addition, some school districts in the county scored sizable gains over the previous year. For instance, the third-grade students in Laguna Beach Unified last school year made phenomenal test-score jumps in all three tested subjects.

Laguna Beach third-graders had a 40-point increase in reading scores, a 64-point increase in written expression and a 50-point increase in mathematics.

The scores in all three categories put Laguna Beach’s third-graders in the top bracket not only in Orange County, but also of any school district in the state.

“We attribute this to our program and our teachers at the lower levels,” said Dennis M. Smith, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified. “Our teachers, who get great help from parents, start building from kindergarten and continue through the first, second and, of course, the third grades. We give them a lot of skill instruction, and this is a cumulation of those efforts. Actually, we did well in the sixth and eighth grades also this year, but the third-grade scores certainly were outstanding.”

Laguna Topped Charts

While Laguna Beach topped the charts, third-graders also showed notable score increases in the La Habra City School District, Orange Unified School District and Magnolia School District.

Irvine Unified School District had slight declines districtwide in third-grade scores in written expression and math and in reading, math and history-social science scores among eighth-graders.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District had drops in third-grade reading and math and also had across-the-board drops in all the tested eighth-grade subjects.

Eighth-grade scores remained a problem in many school districts, not only in Orange County but also statewide. Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, has said junior highs and middle schools are “stepchildren” of California education and need more attention.

In Orange County, for example, Orange Unified School District last school year showed a drop in all tested subjects at the eighth-grade level for the second straight year..

Yorba Linda (Elementary) School District had test score drops in all subjects in the sixth and eighth grades districtwide.

‘Just Incomprehensible’

Mary Ellen Blanton, superintendent of of the Yorba Linda district, noted on Tuesday that all third-grade scores increase during the school year. As for the sixth and eighth grades, she said, “It’s just incomprehensible, and we don’t have an explanation. Those scores in the sixth and eighth grade do not represent our students’ achievement in the classroom. Those same students had very good scores when they were in the third grade.”

School officials have noted that problems with limited speakers of English have resulted in comparatively low test scores for districts such as Santa Ana. But, while officials say that Santa Ana still lags behind other Orange County districts, its CAP score gains were among the most impressive in the state.

Santa Ana Unified’s CAP scores in 1985-86 improved markedly in all categories. In the eighth grade, for example, Santa Ana Unified showed a districtwide increase of 45 points in reading, 53 points in written expression, 33 points in mathematics and 20 points in history-social science.

“We took a good look at how our students were approaching tests--both from a sense of academic preparedness and of positive reinforcement from the schools--and made some changes,” said Edward F. Krass, Santa Ana Unified’s superintendent. He explained that one of the major changes was trying to make students receptive to, and comfortable with, the taking of the state-required CAP tests.

He added, “Our principals and teachers worked with the students to prepare them for taking this kind of tests.”

The Times will publish the test scores for Orange County elementary schools in Sunday’s edition.