Payzant Troubled by Test Results

The latest results of standardized tests taken by all 5th-, 7th-, 9th- and 11th-graders in San Diego city schools show a leveling off or slight decline from the gains in recent years--a mixed picture that schools Supt. Tom Payzant on Tuesday called troubling.

In particular, reading comprehension and vocabulary scores throughout the district declined in many cases despite a continued emphasis by top administrators on new curriculum and teaching methods to boost reading skills.

The latest numbers are certain to attract the attention of the Board of Education, which is impatient for schools to begin showing reading improvements.

A Battery of Subtests

The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, or CTBS, is given annually in the four grades each spring. It consists of a battery of subtests that measure seven areas, and it reports out individual scores for students as well as totals for each school and district. The seven areas are reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, language expression, language mechanics, spelling, mathematics computation and mathematic concepts and applications.

“I’m not interested so much in a snapshot of achievement at any point than I am in looking at trends,” Payzant told the annual start-of-the-school-year gathering of principals and other district administrators Tuesday. “And, while we have improved compared to the early 1980s, from a smaller, historical perspective, the declines from last year are troubling.”

Even more disturbing, Payzant said, is that there is “some evidence that the gap between Asians and whites, on the one hand, and between Hispanics and blacks on the other, is showing some signs of widening again” after years of special effort to address the performance disparity.

The fifth-grade dip in several subtest areas is bedeviling since it continues a trend of upper elementary declines, he said.

While Payzant has long argued for a broader system of evaluating achievement beyond standardized tests, he warned his audience Tuesday that, “while the debate goes on over (reliance on standardized tests), they are going to be around for a while, and we need to take the results with seriousness.”

The CTBS, written by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., is meant to identify strengths and weaknesses by academic objectives that are thought to be standard across the nation.

The latest median scores for fifth graders show drops in vocabulary, in spelling and in language expression from 1988. Reading comprehension, language mechanics, math computation and math concepts were unchanged.

For seventh grade, there was a small improvement in spelling, while vocabulary, reading comprehension, language mechanics, language expression and math concepts were unchanged. Math concepts dropped.

Among ninth-graders, there were slight drops in vocabulary, while all other categories remained the same or dropped slightly.

For 11th grade, spelling, language mechanics, language expression and math computation dropped, while math concepts rose. Reading comprehension remained steady.