Oak Park Seniors Score Highest in County on CAP Tests

Eastern Ventura County school districts scored highest among the nine county districts where high school seniors took the California Assessment Program math and reading tests, according to state Department of Education figures released Tuesday.

At the Oak Park Unified School District in the east county, CAP scores were 319 in reading and 310 in math, the highest in the county, followed by the Conejo Valley Unified District in Thousand Oaks, where scores for the four high schools averaged 287 in reading and 306 in math.

Since the test was first given six years ago, the average combined score countywide has risen 25 points, from 239 to 264, the report showed. The rise in Ventura County mirrored a similar increase of 21 points in statewide CAP scores.

As in past years, Ventura County’s scores are above the state averages of 251 in reading and 260 in math for the 1989-90 school year. The average reading score in Ventura is 260 and the average in math is 268.

However, some Ventura school officials said the most important figures among those released by the state are not the overall scaled scores but a school’s relative rank, which compares it with similar schools based on a number of factors, including parents’ education, economic background and the number of limited English-speaking students.

“It’s the relative rank that we think is most meaningful,” said Bert Pearlman, director of curriculum and assessment for the Oxnard Union High School District.

For example, Pearlman cited the dramatic rise in the relative rank of Camarillo High School, which rose from the 32nd percentile in 1988-89 to the 97th percentile this year. The percentage rank, comparing the school to all other state schools, rose from 63 to 80 in Reading and 63 to 74 in math.

The Oxnard Union High School District also measured strong relative rank increases at Oxnard and Rio Mesa high schools, Pearlman said. But school officials were investigating a slight decline in reading scores at Channel Islands High School, he said.

Both relative rank and scaled scores were up over the previous year’s figures at other school districts, including Ojai Unified, Fillmore Unified and Oak Park Unified. At Ventura Unified, although reading scores dropped by four points to 286, the district’s relative rank rose from 64th to 80th percentile.

But scores and ranks tumbled in several districts, including Moorpark Unified, where the combined score in reading and math fell from 257 to 237, and the school’s relative rank dropped from the 57th to 25th percentile.

“It was totally unexpected,” said Delores Allen, the district’s testing coordinator. “Given the current strong instruction program and the demographic makeup of the community . . . a drop like this makes us question whether it was a valid measure of their actual abilities.”

Allen said the decline was particularly surprising because 17% of the district’s high school seniors have already been accepted at four-year universities.

She said district officials have begun investigating the decline and will continue the investigation when more detailed CAP score results are made available in May.

In the Simi Valley Unified District, improved scores at Apollo Continuation High School were not enough to offset a decline in the district’s combined math and reading scores, from 275 to 271.

“We’re at a little bit of a loss,” said Robert Isenberg, director of special programs and testing. He said the district would seek to find reasons behind the decline when detailed CAP results become available.

Scores in the Santa Paula Union High School District, already among the county’s lowest, also declined from the previous year.

Reading scores at Santa Paula’s two high schools slid from 191 to 173 and math scores dropped from 199 to 184, while the school’s overall relative rank fell from the 43rd to the 15th percentile.

Given that scores increased dramatically at Renaissance High, the district’s continuation high school, Santa Paula’s decrease was attributable to a performance decline at Santa Paula Union High School.

Despite that decline, Santa Paula High Principal Henry Johnson said he was pleased with the school’s performance this year.

Johnson said the number of students taking the test at Santa Paula Union High has risen from 73% in 1987-88 to 96% this year, meeting a state requirement that 95% of eligible seniors take the test. The number of limited English speakers taking the test also rose from 8.1% to 18.5%--the highest district average in the county--and that may have affected scores, he said.

By comparison, three of the county’s top-scoring districts, Ojai Unified, Conejo Valley Unified and Oak Park Unified, reported no limited English-speaking seniors taking the test.

And for the first time, Johnson said, teachers on Santa Paula’s staff took training last fall to help prepare students for the test and the results should be increased scores next year.

“I’m real happy with what we’re doing,” Johnson said.

STEADY PROGRESS: Ventura County’s scores have risen 25 points in six years. B1

KEEPING SCORE: Statewide results show improvement, but small gains for some minorities. A3 County rankings show how schools and districts are performing. B4

California Assessment Test Scores HOW TO READ THE SCORES Here are the 12th-grade California Assessment Program reading and math scores for high schools in Ventura County. The tests are administered annually to high school seniors throughout the state and are meant to show how schools and districts, not individual students, are performing. State education officials have set a goal of three points of growth per year.

Districts are in boldface; individual schools are in lightface. Three years of test results are given. The first line of numbers contains 1989-90 test results; the second and third lines refer to 1988-89 and 1987-88 results.

The scores are reported on a scale from 100 to about 400. The average score statewide in 1989-90 was 251 in reading and 260 in math.

The rank that follows each score allows comparisons to all other districts or schools statewide. All schools and districts are ranked on a scale of 1 to 99 with a median rank of 50. Thus, for example, Beverly Hills High School has a rank of 74 in reading and 94 in math, which means it scored

considerably higher than other high schools in the state in both areas.

SES is a measure of a school’s or a district’s socioeconomic status. It is based on student reports of parents’ education level. Each school and district is assigned a number ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating parents who did not complete high school and 5 indicating those with advanced degrees. A 3 means that most parents in the school or district attended some college.

LEP is the percentage of students who are limited-English proficient, which means they are not native English speakers and are not yet fluent in English. The average California school has 7% LEP students.

In some districts in which only one school is listed, the district and school averages may be different. The reason is that the district average included the scores of a large number of continuation school students.

Reading Math Background Score Rank Score Rank %SES %LEP Conejo Valley Unified 89-90 287 78 306 89 3.8 0 88-89 278 75 296 89 3.7 .5 87-88 287 80 283 81 3.8 .6 Newbury Park 89-90 277 70 296 80 3.6 0 88-89 271 69 287 76 3.6 .9 87-88 271 68 271 69 3.7 1.0 Thousand Oaks 89-90 293 81 313 89 3.8 0 88-89 310 91 303 85 3.7 .2 87-88 285 77 283 79 3.9 .2 Westlake 89-90 291 79 310 87 3.9 0 88-89 261 61 308 87 3.9 .6 87-88 315 92 310 91 4.0 .8

Fillmore Unified 89-90 200 15 240 31 2.2 14.2 88-89 198 6 213 17 2.2 9.5 87-88 207 17 198 2 2.4 15.4 Fillmore 89-90 200 17 240 33 2.2 14.2 88-89 198 17 213 18 2.2 9.6 87-88 207 19 199 13 2.4 15.6

Moorpark Unified 89-90 232 32 241 33 3.1 8.2 88-89 253 55 261 55 3.1 9.5 87-88 244 46 243 41 3.0 10.6 Moorpark 89-90 232 37 243 35 3.1 7.6 88-89 254 55 263 55 3.1 9.8 87-88 251 51 246 47 3.1 10.3

Oak Park Unified 89-90 319 94 310 91 3.8 0 88-89 282 78 283 75 3.8 0 87-88 347 98 305 93 3.7 0 Oak Park 89-90 327 93 321 91 3.8 0 88-89 287 80 292 81 3.8 0 87-88 371 98 326 95 3.7 0

Ojai Unified 89-90 277 71 286 74 3.4 0 88-89 267 64 271 66 3.5 0 87-88 272 67 260 58 3.4 0 Nordhoff 89-90 277 70 286 73 3.4 0 88-89 271 69 273 66 3.5 0 87-88 274 70 262 59 3.4 0

Oxnard Union 89-90 235 35 241 33 2.6 14.0 88-89 218 24 225 24 2.7 8.7 87-88 230 31 228 29 2.8 4.6 Camarillo 89-90 292 80 288 74 2.6 8.2 88-89 264 63 270 63 3.5 1.6 87-88 278 72 267 65 3.6 1.0 Channel Islands 89-90 204 19 227 24 2.5 24.7 88-89 210 23 212 18 2.4 15.0 87-88 204 17 204 15 2.5 7.1 Hueneme 89-90 204 19 206 12 2.3 13.7 88-89 197 16 208 16 2.4 14.1 87-88 202 16 200 13 2.4 4.4 Oxnard 89-90 223 30 218 18 2.4 16.2 88-89 182 10 195 10 2.2 8.0 87-88 209 20 214 19 2.2 7.0 Rio Mesa 89-90 256 54 269 59 3.0 3.5 88-89 246 49 253 47 3.1 2.5 87-88 266 62 263 61 3.1 3.0

Santa Paula Union 89-90 173 2 184 1 2.3 18.5 88-89 191 3 199 2 2.2 8.1 87-88 199 4 188 2 2.1 8.3 Santa Paula Union 89-90 172 6 183 5 2.3 18.8 88-89 193 14 203 14 2.2 8.5 87-88 205 18 189 10 2.1 7.3

Simi Valley Unified 89-90 269 65 272 64 3.3 1.7 88-89 277 73 273 69 3.3 2.1 87-88 269 65 261 61 3.2 2.7 Royal 89-90 266 62 271 62 3.2 .8 88-89 272 70 269 62 3.2 3.1 87-88 275 71 262 59 3.1 3.3 Simi Valley 89-90 273 67 274 64 3.3 2.5 88-89 289 81 286 75 3.4 1.4 87-88 268 64 263 3.3 2.3

Ventura Unified 89-90 286 77 285 73 3.3 4.1 88-89 290 86 270 65 3.4 4.6 87-88 284 78 264 66 3.4 1.7 Buena 89-90 304 87 299 82 3.5 3.3 88-89 293 83 278 69 3.4 6.2 87-88 290 80 269 67 3.5 2.2 Ventura 89-90 268 64 271 62 3.1 4.6 88-89 288 81 263 55 3.4 2.9 87-88 280 74 261 59 3.4 1.2