Honig Cites Big Strides Made by State’s Students

Countering U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett’s fairly downbeat “report card” on the nation’s schools, state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said Monday that California schools are making impressive gains and in some ways are doing better than the rest of the country.

Compared to five years ago, college-bound seniors in California are attaining higher scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and more students are taking the rigorous courses needed for college, he said.

Students at the lowest levels also are showing improvement, although Honig acknowledged that minority schools in particular still have a long way to go.

“There is substantial progress, but we’re nowhere near where we have to be,” he said.

Honig’s comments were made in response to a report requested by President Reagan on the fifth anniversary of “A Nation at Risk,” a stinging 1983 critique of American public education commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. The 1983 document, which said schools were engulfed in a “rising tide of mediocrity,” spurred a national movement that led many states, including California, to enact a wide range of school reforms, such as increasing teacher certification standards and high school graduation requirements.

‘Some Undeniable Progress’

In the report, which Bennett will formally deliver to President Reagan at a White House ceremony today, the education secretary said the nation’s public schools have made “some undeniable progress” in the last few years. American high school students are taking more mathematics, science and advanced placement courses and are attaining somewhat better scores on achievement and college-entrance examinations such as the SAT, he said.

But he also noted that too many students drop out and too many graduates finish high school with major gaps in their knowledge. “ . . . We certainly are not doing well enough, and we are not doing well enough fast enough. We are still at risk,” he wrote in the report, titled “American Education: Making It Work.”

Honig, however, released his own statistics to show that statewide efforts to improve the public school system are paying off, pushing California students ahead of their peers nationally on some measures of academic performance.

For instance, more California high school seniors are taking the SAT and more are attaining good to excellent scores compared to the rest of the nation, he said. Nineteen percent of California seniors who took the verbal portion of the test in the 1986-87 academic years scored higher than 450, compared to 17.9% of seniors nationally. Similarly, 20.7% of California seniors scored better than 500 on the math portion of the test, compared to 17.6% of seniors nationally. State education officials consider 450 and 500 to be benchmarks for admission to the state university system.

Both California and the nation are producing more seniors who score high--above 600 on either the verbal or math portions--but California is doing slightly better, Honig said. In 1986-87, 3.5% of California seniors scored above 600 on the verbal test, compared to 3.4% nationally. On the math test, 8.9% of California seniors scored higher than 600, compared to 7.6% nationally.

National Average

California’s average combined SAT score is 906, which, according to the U.S Department of Education’s annual rankings released in February, is even with the national average.

After declining in the late 1970s, average SAT scores in California began to increase in 1980 and rose slightly last year while the national average stayed even.

The Bennett report also cited information from a forthcoming study comparing the transcripts of 15,000 1987 high school graduates with a comparable group of 1982 graduates that found more students taking harder courses. The number of students taking advanced math classes has increased by one-third, the number taking pre-calculus has more than doubled, and the number taking chemistry is up by half, the study found. The percentage of students taking less demanding “general track” classes dropped from 35% to 17%.

Honig reported similar progress with course enrollments. Since 1983-84, enrollment in advanced math classes has grown by 30%, in physics by 60% and in chemistry by nearly 70%, he said. Because of new graduation requirements enacted in 1983, 82% of California seniors have taken three or more years of math, 53% have taken three or more years of science, 43% have taken four or more years of history, and 27% have taken at least three years of a foreign language.

In addition, 41,000 California seniors passed College Board advanced placement tests last year, a 73% increase over 1983-84.

Students at the lower rungs of achievement also are making gains, Honig said. Citing scores from the California Assessment Program (CAP) test of basic reading, writing and math skills, he said there are 197,000 fewer students with scores in the bottom 25% and 186,000 more students with scores in the top 25% in 1986-87 than in 1983-84.

State Statistics

However, only 45% of California seniors scored at the 12th-grade level in reading last year, statistics released by the state Department of Education show, and only 50% scored at that grade level in math. Nineteen percent of seniors scored below sixth-grade reading levels, while 15% scored below seventh-grade math levels.

Honig also said 12th-grade scores at predominantly minority high schools are rising more rapidly than at other schools, but he acknowledged that the achievement gap between minority and white schools remains large and must be addressed.