CAP Scores, Pride Climb Together at Nogales High

To outsiders, Nogales High School in La Puente might not seem remarkable.

Less than half of the graduating seniors go on to college. Some students complain of gang members and drug dealing on campus. And just last month, racial tensions between Latino and Filipino students erupted in a series of fistfights that led to several suspensions and expulsions.

“It’s not peaches and cream here,” said Virginia Anaya, 18, a senior at Nogales, which is part of the Rowland Unified School District in the San Gabriel Valley.

But on Tuesday, Nogales had something to celebrate with the release of new 12th-grade California Assessment Program test scores. The results showed Nogales had chalked up one of the biggest improvements in the state over the last six years--a 43-point jump in math and 74 points in reading. Statewide, math scores rose an average of 26 points and reading grew by 15 over this period.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig came to Nogales Tuesday to announce the statewide CAP test results, holding up the school as an example for others in the state.

“It’s an ethnically and economically diverse school and their teachers and students have all worked very hard,” Honig said at a press conference. “They’ve made tremendous improvements.”

More than half of Nogales’ 2,850 students are Latino. About 20% are Asian or Filipino; 13% are Anglo and the rest are black. By contrast, 12 years ago, 36% of the students were Anglo.

It was the first time Honig announced CAP scores at a school, and students and school officials were beaming in the spotlight. They posted a welcome on the school entrance sign board and escorted reporters and television crews through the campus. Afterward, there was a party in the school library.

“The CAP scores are really beneficial to our school,” said Jerico Mangalindan, 18, Nogales’ student body president. “Many years, we’ve been given a negative image. Most of the time we’re known for sports. Now we’re giving academics a chance.”

Principal Ronald Tyler and Rowland Supt. Sharon Robison said the district has tried to coordinate teaching and instruction with the state tests, so that students could develop the analytical, reading and writing skills needed to perform well on the CAP tests.

Some educators have criticized schools that appear to alter teaching methods to improve test scores, but Robison defended Nogales’ efforts, saying, “There’s no way to teach the test but we should be teaching the skills” necessary to do well on the exams.

Also, Tyler and Robison said Nogales has benefited by channeling California Lottery funds into new teaching programs rather than into capital improvements or the school’s general operating fund.

A driving force behind the changes is Marianne Plummer, an English teacher at Nogales who helped redesign literature courses and establish a core English curriculum aimed at raising the skills of lower-achieving students.

The energy level was high in Plummer’s advanced senior English class on Tuesday. Shortly after Honig had departed, the students were back at their desks, hands shooting up as they competed for a chance to analyze excerpts from Machiavelli’s “The Prince.”