CAP Scores Drop in Antelope Valley : Education: District resolves to better prepare high school students for taking the state test of basic learning.

Seniors in the Antelope Valley Union High School District scored substantially lower this year on a key state test of basic learning, school officials disclosed Monday, saying disruptions caused by the region’s rapid growth were at least partially to blame.

Senior-year reading and math scores on the California Assessment Program, or CAP, test dropped at all four of the Antelope Valley district’s four-year campuses compared to the scores of last year’s seniors, said district Supt. Kenneth Brummel.

Brummel called the region’s growth a major factor in the decline. He said swelling enrollments have led to overcrowding, increased truancy and disciplinary problems. In addition, because of the growth, many students are new to the district and were educated elsewhere, he said.

Slightly more than 1,000 Antelope Valley seniors took the CAP test last fall, producing a district average score of 236 points, down 24 from the prior year’s 260. The scores reflect students’ combined reading and math performance. Scores are based on a sliding scale from 100 points to about 400 points.

Brummel said he was disappointed by the results and has ordered the district’s principals to make improved performance next year a top priority. The district plans to review how it can better motivate and prepare students for taking the test, he said.

The system grew almost as fast the previous year, however, but that growth did not appear to hurt test scores. The 1988-89 senior class’ average of 260 points was an increase of 31 over the 229-point showing of the 1987-88 senior class, district records showed.

Gordon Carlson, the district’s coordinator of special projects, said improved scores a year ago could have been linked to the start of a district policy limiting the test to students who had earned enough units to be classified as seniors. In previous years, the test was given to all students who had been in high school four years, including some who had not reached senior status.

Carlson said it is difficult to pinpoint exact causes until the district gets a more detailed breakdown of the latest scores. In addition to a 7% enrollment increase this year to nearly 10,000 students, curriculum and student motivation could have been factors, he said.

The test quizzes students on what they ought to have learned based on state guidelines. But this year’s seniors were not taught according to those standards, which the district began using as teaching guidelines only last year. Also, Carlson said, some students do not try to do well on the test because they are not graded on its results.

In individual high school results, Antelope Valley High dropped 47 points to an average score of 218. Palmdale dropped 13 points to 233. Quartz Hill dropped 11 points to 258. Each had more than 300 students involved. Desert Winds Continuation School, which had only 11 seniors, dropped 86 points to a score of 190.