West High May Seek Change in CAP Scores

Officials at West High School in Torrance are debating whether to ask state education officials to revise the school’s California Assessment Program test score because a group of seniors intentionally flunked the exam.

Assistant Supt. Arnold Plank said Wednesday that the state Department of Education has indicated it would be willing to help West High recalculate the score by pulling the scores of students the school suspects of deliberately flunking.

The department also indicated it would consider substituting the new score for the old one if the school can document carefully how it determined who flunked the test on purpose, Plank said.

Susie Lange, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said that although the agency has made no commitment, it would probably be amenable to helping school administrators recalculate the score.

However, it is highly unlikely that the department would allow the new score to be substituted as the official one, she said. “Once a test is taken, that is it,” Lange said.

The school last week disclosed that perhaps as many as 20 seniors intentionally failed the test, which is used to gauge a school’s performance. The students, part of a class of 400, were upset because they believe administrators place too much emphasis on the test, school officials said.

Scores Plummeted

The school’s math and reading scores plummeted, and school officials said the students’ action was to blame. Reading scores dropped from the 85th percentile statewide in 1987-88 to the 51st percentile this year, while math scores fell from the 95th percentile to the 71st percentile.

Christa Jancsik, a 17-year-old senior, said in an interview that she thinks her action was justified. She said she told school administrators that she did not want to take the test. After she was told she would face disciplinary action if she refused to take it, she sat through the exam but did not answer any questions, she said.

On the second day of the test, when students are required to write an essay, Jancsik said she wrote an eight-page “complaint letter.”

Jancsik complained that while school administrators prepare students for the test and urge them to do well so the school will look good, they do nothing to help students prepare for other tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which is used by colleges and universities to evaluate applicants.

“If they are going to give us help for one test, they should give us help for all tests,” Jancsik said. She said she felt “manipulated and used” by the school.

Although students do not put their names on the tests, initials, birth dates, and other identifying data is collected. Hence, it may be possible to track down--with a lot of detective work--which student took a particular test, Lange said.

West High officials have already obtained a computer printout showing individual test scores and, next to them, the identifying data. However, Plank acknowledged that it will still be difficult to determine which students actually sabotaged their tests.

“It will take a lot of effort to establish beyond a shadow of doubt . . . what tests were deliberately altered,” he said.

Plank said the identities of students who administrators either know or believe flunked the test on purpose will not be publicly revealed. Nor will the students be punished, he said.