2 Schools and the CAP Test : Education: Two elementary schools about 15 miles apart present a stark contrast in achievement.

At Sunkist Elementary School, a tidy 31-year-old campus nestled in a middle-class Anaheim neighborhood, students come to stay: Many begin their academic careers in the school’s kindergarten and remain with the same group of classmates all the way through sixth grade.

Less than 15 miles away, Oak View Elementary School in Huntington Beach wrestles with crowded classrooms, an annual turnover rate that tops 90% and many children who are ill-equipped for public education, either because they lack English skills or because they have had little exposure to formal schooling.

California Assessment Program test scores released last week speak volumes about the two schools and their vastly different experiences. Sunkist, always among Orange County’s highest, led all elementary schools in third-grade writing and math. Oak View, perennially near the bottom, this year dropped even further, ranking lowest in the county in third-grade reading, writing and math, as well as in sixth-grade reading, writing and math.

As the statistics indicate, the two schools, although nearly identical in size, sit at opposite ends of Orange County’s educational spectrum. Their performance suggests that while local educators are making progress toward improving county schools, daunting obstacles remain.

“For some schools, it can be overwhelming,” Orange County Supt. of Education Robert Peterson said.

While most schools in the county were well above state averages in subjects covered by CAP scores released last week, others struggled. Generally, eighth-grade scores were up, while students in the third and sixth grades posted lower scores compared to last year.

Educators have debated the value of CAP scores and their usefulness in assessing a school’s performance ever since the tests were introduced, but nearly all agree that the tests give at least some indication of how a school is managing.

So when Sunkist and Oak View officials read their scores last week, there was joy at one and palpable frustration at the other. In writing, for instance, Sunkist’s third graders were the only group in the county to break 400 on the 500-point test. Oak View’s were the only ones to score lower than 200.

It was the second year in a row that Sunkist Elementary’s third-graders have dazzled educators with their performance. They scored better than 400 in writing and math both years, and this year they averaged 385 in reading. Third-grade state averages on the test are 277 in reading, 278 in writing and 278 in math, so Sunkist’s scores, particularly coming in back-to-back years, drew high praise from educators.

The school’s sixth-graders tested nearly as well, ranking in the 95th percentile or higher among schools with student populations similar to Sunkist’s.

Explanations for the 580-student school’s success are as obvious as they are simple, Oak View officials and other educators said in interviews. Most students come from stable families and a neighborhood that, while not extravagant, is nonetheless comfortably middle-class. In school, students are held accountable for their actions, parents are involved at all levels of the educational process, and teachers do not hesitate to mix stern criticism with their congratulations.

“We are willing to try new things, and a lot of new things are very good, but we are also very traditional,” fourth-grade teacher Darlene Martasin said. “We believe in positive reinforcement, but we also believe in firm discipline. Sometimes that’s the only way you get somewhere.”

Notices posted in Sunkist classrooms remind students of that. Teachers put up lists of “limits” and “consequences,” and students ruefully admit that the warnings are religiously enforced. Consequences can include “time out,” where disobedient students are sent to another class for a proscribed period of time to do their work. Repeat offenders can lose their recess or spend time after school paying for their transgressions.

Students who fail to turn in assignments or who routinely misbehave can expect a call to their parents.

But most of the attention is positive. Students work in small groups, some as small as four or five youngsters, under the close eye of teachers or volunteer assistants. They are gently coaxed toward correct answers and warmly praised when they get them. In some grades, students receive play money for commendable work, and the money is banked, with interest, until students use it to buy goods at periodic auctions.

During a recent visit to the school, every classroom was managed by both a teacher and at least one volunteer. While teachers guided students in reading, volunteers presided over small groups of young foreign students, tutoring them in English.

Some of the volunteers are parents who have devoted more than a decade to contributing spare hours to educating the children of their community. It’s a level of parental support that most schools would envy.

“In many ways, the parents are the key to this effort,” Principal Dorothy M. VerWys said. “They completely support what we’re doing here, and they help us with money and, more importantly, with their involvement.”

But one key ingredient to Sunkist’s testing record is an element that the school cannot control: the background of its student body.

The neighborhood surrounding the school is composed of single-family homes, places where couples move to raise a family. Children enter school in kindergarten, and even if they cannot speak English when they start their schooling, most are immersed in a stable learning environment for long enough to absorb it.

Things could not be more different at Oak View.

Perched on the periphery of Huntington Beach’s wealthy areas, Oak View sits amid block after block of rental apartments, in a neighborhood littered with graffiti and bedeviled by gang violence.

“This is a barrio,” Principal Joan Buffehr said in an interview. “It’s a poor neighborhood, and the population changes all the time.”

It changes so fast that Oak View updates its attendance figures almost every day. Thursday, two Latino children sat in the school office, waiting to be enrolled. In the past month alone, the school had 31 new students and lost 17. The school population of 622 is up 112 students from this time last year, and classrooms bulge.

New children often show up at school lacking even the most basic educational skills.

“These kids are coming from the interior of Mexico where they not only haven’t had English, they haven’t had a lot of schooling at all,” Buffehr said.

While Sunkist first-graders spent this week adding new words to their reading vocabulary, many of Oak View’s first-graders struggled with the alphabet.

“We’re really noticing this year that the kids who are entering are very far behind,” said first-grade teacher Linda Saez, a 16-year veteran of Oak View who teaches in Spanish as well as English. “They just haven’t been in school, so we’re spending a lot of time just teaching them to write their names.”

On the playground, clusters of children grind shallow holes in the dirt to battle it out in mid-morning marbles. There was little English spoken within the groups of five or six students, but most spoke the language well enough to answer questions.

Miguel, a 10-year-old fifth-grader from Mexico, said he had been in school for two years. “I like my classes,” he said in accented English. “Especially math and PE”

Eighty-six percent of Oak View’s third-graders tested last year had limited English skills, one of the highest totals in the county. And 59% of its sixth-graders also were struggling to learn English as a second language. Most are also poor: 94% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunches.

In teacher George Viramontes’ class last week, students sang along with a record that reviewed days of the week in English and Spanish. It was a rudimentary lesson, but Viramontes said it represented an important step forward for a group of students with very few educational skills.

“They gain an ear for the language,” Viramontes said. “We have to go through a lot orally, and they love to sing.”

A half-dozen or so of Viramontes’ students--a combination of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders--cannot read or write, the teacher said.

Oak View third-graders averaged 183 points in reading, 192 in writing and 209 in math. Their reading and writing scores put them in the bottom 1% of all students statewide, and their math scores fell in the bottom 4%. When compared to schools with students from similar social and economic backgrounds, Oak View did slightly better. But its reading and writing scores still were among the lowest 10%.

Likewise, sixth-graders at the school struggled with their tests, dropping 32 points from last year in reading and as a result producing a score of 195--the county’s lowest in that category. The writing score of 220 ranked in the 7th percentile statewide, and its average of 188 in math ranked lowest in the county for sixth-graders.

“There’s no question about it, it’s a low-scoring school,” said John L. Thomas, administrator for pupil personnel services in the Ocean View School District. “They have to take a look at the whole program, but it’s very difficult when you have such high transiency rates.”

The process of self-examination, always under way at Oak View, has redoubled with the latest test scores. District and school officials said they are studying the latest numbers for clues on how the school can improve.

“Believe me, as soon as they picked themselves off the floor, they got to work on the problem,” Thomas said of the Oak View teachers and administrators.

Buffehr agreed. “We don’t want to make excuses,” she said. “We just want to give our students every possible opportunity. We don’t feel that there are things that our kids should be deprived of just because they’re poor.”

And though it can be painfully frustrating to marshal new groups of students through the most basic lessons year after year, Oak View’s faculty shows no signs of giving up. Last week, hallways echoed with students singing, and classrooms filled with youthful buoyancy.

“It’s a little discouraging sometimes because you don’t see any progress,” Saez said, taking a crayon drawing handed to her by a Spanish-speaking pupil. “But then, a little light comes on in one of the kids, and you know it’s worth it.”

RELATED SCORES: Complete Orange County results in the California Assessment Program test for third, sixth and eighth grades are on U2. The s c ores are scaled between 100 and more than 400, and may be compared to district and state averages. Dashes indicate that tests were not given or that scores were not available for a particular school. Also included are socio-economic ratings of parental skill and education levels. The rankings are from 1 to 3 for third and sixth grades, and 1 to 5 for eighth grade.