Inner-City High Schools Failing Despite Honig Claims, Study Finds

The majority of inner-city high schools in Los Angeles are doing a worse job of educating low-income black and Latino youths than they were 10 years ago, according to a study of standardized test scores released today by the University of Chicago.

The study, believed to be the first comprehensive analysis of high school achievement patterns within a single large metropolitan area, challenges claims made by state and local education officials, including state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, that sweeping school reforms of the last five years have improved education and reversed California’s slumping test scores.

The study also is expected to fuel debate over the controversial reforms, which have placed Honig and the California schools in the national limelight.

Although the state Department of Education last March reported a record jump in high school test scores, the study prepared by the Metropolitan Opportunity Project at the University of Chicago asserted that those gains “masked problems found in Los Angeles-area schools,” where researchers discovered a widening gap in achievement between minority and white schools, particularly since 1980.

May Have Hindered Progress

One conclusion of the study is that recent California reforms aimed at raising academic standards have not helped the majority of poor and minority youngsters and, in fact, may have hindered their progress.

“The problem of the isolated, inner-city, low-income minority school has not been resolved but requires urgent attention,” said Gary Orfield, a political science professor and director of the nonprofit project, which studies minority education and employment issues. “Nothing that has been done in the last decade is on the order of the magnitude of what is needed” to raise the quality of education at schools with largely minority enrollment.

The lowest-achieving minority schools in Orfield’s study--which encompassed Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties--were mainly in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Cleveland, Grant, Van Nuys and Hollywood high schools were among schools showing the biggest declines in reading and math scores between 1976 and 1986.

Wilson and Millikan high schools in the Long Beach Unified School District were also near the bottom in both categories. Two Orange County schools, Anaheim High and Valley High in Santa Ana were on Orfield’s list of the 10 worst in reading scores.

Orfield did find some exceptions. Two Los Angeles high schools, Lincoln and Garfield, were among the regional schools showing the biggest gains in math scores.

Orfield said the Metropolitan Opportunity Project has conducted similar studies in Chicago and Atlanta and found similar trends. He could not say whether the achievement patterns found in the four Southern California counties exist elsewhere in the state because he has not studied other urban areas in California.

Reasons Unspecified

The new study did not specify reasons for the poor performance at some schools. Orfield acknowledged that a wide range of social and political forces--such as demographic changes and certain Reagan Administration policies that reduced aid to poor families--may have contributed to the apparent deterioration of scores. He also suggested that California schools might not have provided enough individual attention to help minority youngsters meet higher statewide standards for performance.

Meanwhile, Honig, the chief architect of a 1983 state school reform act that stiffened high school graduation requirements and lengthened the school day, reacted angrily to the conclusion that state education reforms might not be working.

“The evidence points to the opposite conclusion,” Honig said. “The reforms seem to have helped in minority schools. They are still low and have a long way to go, but they are making significant gains.”

Management Questioned

Honig, whose management of California schools is under investigation by a commission appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, criticized the Orfield study, in particular its special focus on three academic years--1975-76, 1979-80 and 1985-86. California test scores began to rise in 1984 and have inched upward each year since, a fact that Honig said the report did not sufficiently recognize.

Los Angeles school district officials also attacked the study, calling it “simplistic” and “superficial.”

“I don’t have a problem with the statistics. It’s the interpretation,” said Associate Supt. Paul Possemato. “The issue in my mind is, can the school system overcome all of the forces that descend upon it? If you say superficially that schools are not meeting the needs of the poverty child, well, neither are society nor parents nor courts nor police. It’s all part of a comprehensive whole” that must be included in the solution to poor achievement.

Study of 483 High Schools

The study examined scores from the California Assessment Program test of basic academic skills for 483 high schools in the four Southern California counties. The test is administered annually in the third, sixth, eighth and twelfth grades.

In general, 12th-grade scores have been on the rise statewide. This year, state education officials reported the largest one-year gain in 10 years on the 12th-grade test. Honig attributed the rise mainly to efforts since 1983 to stiffen graduation requirements and strengthen curriculum.

But the University of Chicago study said closer analysis “tells a story of failure” in inner-city high schools, particularly in the Los Angeles school district.

“Nothing in this data suggests that the California reforms enacted to date have turned around the problems of the region’s students in mastering basic skills,” the study stated.

Gap Is Widening

According to Orfield, the analysis of test scores also shows that the gap between the lowest-achieving and highest-achieving high schools is growing instead of diminishing. While the top 10 regional high schools posted average reading test-score gains of 5.1% from 1976 to 1986, scores at the bottom 10 schools dropped an average of 10%.

The schools on the top were suburban schools with mostly white enrollments, while the schools at the bottom were predominantly inner-city Los Angeles schools.

On math scores, Orfield found that the average for the top 10 schools rose 13.3% over the 10-year period, while those for the bottom 10 fell an average of 7.7%.

Honig, however, said that state test scores for the 80 most heavily minority high schools in the four counties have risen between 1984 and 1987. Analyzing results for those years, he said, would have produced a more accurate picture of academic trends.

Higher Reading Scores

According to state Department of Education figures, the average reading score for those minority high schools rose nearly 2% between 1984 and 1987. The math score rose 2.5%.

An analysis of minority high schools in the Los Angeles school district showed a 2.4% average rise in reading and about a 2% average rise in math.

Principals of some of the Los Angeles schools identified as being on the bottom academically said Orfield’s study was unfair.

For example, at Cleveland High School in Reseda, where the enrollment is 44% Anglo, 23% Latino, 20% black and 11% Asian, Principal Ida Mae Windham said the school has intensified its efforts to retrieve dropouts in recent years. “Ten years ago, that was a (group) that was not dealt with, but they are in school now and they are involved in the testing.” Higher achievement on the state skills tests “will be down the line. . . . It’s a slow process.”

Positive Effect

Another education expert, Allen Odden of Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonprofit research group, had not seen the study but said findings he will release next month show that the California reforms are having a positive effect in predominantly minority schools.

Odden, a USC education professor, studied five junior and 12 senior high schools in California that were “actively responding” to the state reform efforts, he said. Because it did not examine test scores, the study offers no findings on the impact of specific reforms on achievement. But Odden said that those schools had increased the number and level of services for low-achieving students by adding special counseling and tutoring programs. “What we concluded was that these kids haven’t been overlooked as the educational reform movement has been implemented,” Odden said.

HIGH SCHOOL PERFORMANCE

A study of 10 years of standardized reading test scores by high school students in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties suggests that schools improving the most are in suburban areas. Those declining the most are from inner-city areas, particularly in Los Angeles:

THE TOP 10 SCHOOLS

Change School District County in Score Brea-Olinda Brea-Olinda Orange 6.2 Nogales Rowland Los Angeles 5.6 La Mirada La Mirada Los Angeles 5.5 Avalon Long Beach Los Angeles 5.4 Hart Hart Los Angeles 5.3 Cerritos ABC Los Angeles 5.1 Chino Chino S. Bernardino 5.1 Barstow Barstow S. Bernardino 4.6 Edison Hunt. Beach Orange 4.1 Cajon S. Bernardino S. Bernardino 3.9

THE BOTTOM 10 SCHOOLS

Change School District County in Score Birmingham Los Angeles Los Angeles -7.7 Valley Santa Ana Orange -8.5 Anaheim Anaheim Orange -9.1 Hollywood Los Angeles Los Angeles -9.4 Millikan Long Beach Los Angeles -9.6 Verdugo Hills Los Angeles Los Angeles -9.6 Wilson Long Beach Los Angeles -11.3 Van Nuys Los Angeles Los Angeles -11.3 Grant Los Angeles Los Angeles -11.3 Cleveland Los Angeles Los Angeles -11.9

The more successful minority high schools in the four counties during 1986 were in Los Angeles County, but none were in the city of Los Angeles. All had predominantly Latino enrollment.

School District County AFDC Black Latino Baldwin Park Baldwin Park Los Angeles 15.5% 1% 66% Sierra Vista Baldwin Park Los Angeles 14.0% 1% 69% Schurr Montebello Los Angeles 14.3% 1% 61% Santa Fe Whittier Los Angeles 9.5% 1% 54% Mean 13.3% 1% 62%