Cavazos Cites Scores, Says U.S. Education Is Stagnating

American education is stagnating by nearly every measure in a new comparison of school performance across the country, Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos said Wednesday as he released the sixth annual State Education Performance Chart.

The chart shows a decline in the national high school graduation rate and falling scores on college entrance exams in half the states.

“We must do better,” Cavazos said in a statement. “We must revitalize education in America. I am challenging states and districts to establish education improvement targets.”

Cavazos said that he would write every governor, state schools chief and school board president in the country to urge them to adopt his targets, which include boosting high school graduation rates to 90% and cutting in half the number of children who fail a grade.

“These goals are doable,” he said. “We must focus not on the minimum, but on the best.”

The controversial performance chart, known as the wall chart, shows a general lack of progress despite the continuing spate of improvement efforts and ever-rising education spending--up to $3,977 per student in 1987, compared to $3,756 in 1986.

National scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test fell from 906 to 904, on a scale of 400 to 1,600, from 1987 to 1988. Fully 14 of the 22 states in which the SAT is the dominant college entrance exam registered declines.

Scores on the American College Testing Program, on a scale of 1 to 36, showed a scant 0.1-point gain. And 11 of the 28 states in which the ACT dominates posted decreases.

The high school graduation rate rose from 69.5% in the first chart to 71.7% in 1985. But it fell slightly in 1986 to 71.6% and dropped to 71.1% in 1987, the latest year for which statistics could be calculated.

In California, however, the average SAT score rose two points to 908, tying for fourth place with Connecticut and Maryland among the states. New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont had the highest SAT scores.

Citing the state’s SAT scores, California Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig challenged Cavazos’ conclusion that schools have stagnated as “highly misleading” and “inaccurate.”

Honig said that the federal government’s performance chart fails to take into account the substantial increases in the number of students taking the college-entrance exam. In California, he said, 50% more seniors took the exam in 1987 than in 1982, when the first performance chart was issued. A rise in the number of test-takers normally drives scores down, he said, but in California the scores have gone up.

“That is not stagnation,” Honig said.

The California schools chief also criticized the chart’s focus on college-bound students and dropouts. “That’s maybe half the kids,” he said. “The other 50%, the average kids, don’t show up on this chart.”

The performance chart showed little change in California’s 1987 high school graduation rate of 66.1%, which was 0.6% lower than in 1986. Since 1982, the state’s graduation rate has increased by 6%.

Minnesota ranked first with a high school completion rate of 90.6%, while the District of Columbia was last at 55.5%.

Looking at trends since the first wall chart was issued in 1982, one bright note was a continuous rise in the percentage of students taking the Advanced Placement test qualifying them for college credit, from 5% to 11%. The department attributed the climb largely to doubled Latino involvement and an 83% increase in participation by blacks.