More Students in State Aiming to Enter College : Education: A state report shows that a greater proportion of the class of 1989 qualified for admission to a public university compared with high school graduates of several years ago.

More of California’s high school students are setting their sights on college, a new state Department of Education report showed today.

A greater proportion of the class of 1989 completed course requirements for the University of California, enrolled in advanced placement classes and scored higher on college entrance exams than did those who graduated just a few years earlier, the report found.

“We’ve been concentrating on getting kids ready for college, and it’s paying off,” Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, said in releasing the report.

The report does not include information on how many of these students actually entered college. The state Commission on Post Secondary Education compiles records only on students who enter a four-year public university in California. It does not keep tabs on students who enter two-year community colleges or who go to private schools or to colleges out of state. However, its most recent data showed there has been some increase in the percentage of graduates entering four-year state colleges from 1984 to 1988.

Using information collected annually from all high schools in California, the report compared students who graduated last June with those who graduated in 1984 and in 1985.

It looked at their Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, at the numbers of students taking so-called “advanced placement” tests to earn college credits, the numbers enrolled in advanced mathematics, physics and chemistry courses and at how many completed all of the courses required for admission to the University of California.

The report found that the class of ’89 topped its predecessors in all those areas. The number of students completing courses required for UC admission, for instance, climbed 20% in the state.

In 1985, 25.4% of the graduates had completed the required courses, which include U.S. history, four years of English, three years of math, a laboratory science and two years of a foreign language. By 1989, the number had risen to 30.6%.

In Los Angeles County, the percentage of seniors finishing the UC required courses in 1985 was identical to the state average--25.4%. But 32.9% of the class of ’89 in the county completed them, pulling ahead of the state average.

Among the county’s largest districts, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District fared the best--60.5% of its ’89 graduating class finished the UC course sequence.

The biggest strides were made by the El Rancho Unified School District in Pico Rivera, which saw the numbers of its seniors finishing the courses shoot from only 10.7% in 1985 to 61.2% in 1989. And the massive Los Angeles Unified School District, staggering under budget problems and explosive growth, nonetheless pulled off a 28% increase during that period--rising from 29.2% to 37.3%.

Statewide, the numbers of students completing the courses increased among all the major ethnic and racial groups.

“These data mean that thousands more students, representing a broader cross-section of the population, are prepared for higher education today than would have been (the case) if the 1983 status quo had prevailed,” Honig said, referring to the year a series of reforms was initiated aimed at getting students to take tougher courses from a more sophisticated curriculum.

“I am especially pleased that our minority and low-socioeconomic students are well represented in this growing college-bound group,” said Honig. He planned to visit San Francisco’s Mission High School today in tribute to its accomplishments in getting its predominantly minority, low-income students to college.

Some other findings of the report include:

- The rate of seniors passing the advanced placement tests has gone from 9.5 per 100 students taking the test in 1983-84 to 20.3 in 1988-89.

- Since 1983-84, enrollments have increased 37% in advanced mathematics, 63% in physics and 53% in chemistry.

- The rate of seniors scoring at least 450 on the verbal part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, used by many colleges to help decide on admissions, rose from 15.5% for the class of ’83 to 18.7% for the class of ’89. The rate of seniors scoring at least 500 on the math portion of the SAT climbed from 16.5% to 20.5% in the same period.

Honig said all those numbers point to “substantial growth in the pool of young people better prepared to go on to college and into the work force.”

He cited various programs in several school districts that are aimed at encouraging students who might not otherwise include college in their plans. They include Project 2000 in Kern County and Advancement Via Individual Determination in San Diego, which Honig said have “demonstrated marked success.”

The Kern County program, for instance, works with 400 students in teams of 100 each and provides special teacher training and lower class sizes.

“They’ve had some fantastic results. It shows if you restructure (redesign school programs) with a particular objective in mind, it really works,” Honig said.

COLLEGE BOUND

Here is a district-by-district listing of how Los Angeles County high school seniors fared on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. In many districts, the percentage of seniors scoring at least 450 on the verbal part of the SAT and at least 500 on the math part increased between 1984 and 1989. Entrance exam test score improvement is just one indication that more students are better prepared for college.

VERBAL MATH % SENIORS SCORING 450+ % SENIORS SCORING 500+ DISTRICT CLASS OF ’84 CLASS OF ’89 CLASS OF ’84 CLASS OF ’89 ABC Unified 10.4 17.8 14.6 27.2 Alhambra City High 9.5 12.8 16.8 24.1 Antelope Valley Union 7.3 14.6 8.4 15.9 Arcadia Unified * 28.1 * 42.0 Azusa Unified 6.0 4.7 5.0 6.7 Baldwin Park Unified 4.8 6.9 5.1 7.4 Bassett Unified 1.4 1.1 0.7 1.8 Bellflower Unified 5.3 8.1 7.9 9.6 Beverly Hills Unified 41.8 40.5 47.9 55.3 Bonita Unified * 13.4 * 14.2 Burbank Unified 13.7 13.6 13.4 17.0 Centinela Valley Union 7.7 4.8 8.3 7.0 Charter Oak Unified 9.1 13.4 11.3 14.3 Claremont Unified 29.0 28.3 28.5 32.7 Compton Unified 0.8 1.5 0.8 1.5 Covina-Valley Unified 9.6 13.5 10.6 15.8 Culver City Unified 16.7 18.8 16.2 25.1 Downey Unified 9.8 12.9 14.4 15.3 Duarte Unified 1.8 3.4 4.7 5.6 El Monte Union * 5.3 * 9.2 El Rancho Unified 3.5 3.7 2.5 4.2 El Segundo Unified 16.8 17.7 12.0 15.9 Glendale Unified 12.8 17.2 17.9 25.2 Glendora Unified 16.9 21.5 17.5 24.9 Hacienda- 9.5 15.1 12.0 23.4 La Puente Unified Inglewood Unified 2.3 5.4 2.0 2.7 La Canada Unified 37.7 44.5 31.4 43.1 Las Virgenes Unified 28.2 30.5 27.5 32.2 Long Beach Unified 8.1 9.9 8.1 11.3 Los Angeles Unified 9.0 10.7 11.2 14.0 Lynwood Unified * 2.3 * 2.3 Monrovia Unified 6.2 8.6 5.0 11.8 Montebello Unified 6.2 7.9 10.0 10.1 Norwalk- 5.2 7.9 6.6 9.0 La Mirada Unified Palos Verdes * 48.4 * 58.5 Peninsula Unified Paramount Unified 3.3 4.5 4.5 6.3 Pasadena Unified 10.9 12.5 11.8 12.0 Pomona Unified 4.9 4.3 4.9 5.8 Rowland Unified * * * * San Marino Unified 36.1 53.8 54.0 70.0 Santa Monica- 23.0 26.8 25.1 29.9 Malibu Unified South Bay Union 18.0 22.2 16.3 19.7 South Pasadena 25.7 29.4 26.0 39.9 Unified Temple City Unified 10.6 16.0 11.6 18.3 Torrance Unified 13.8 19.0 19.2 27.1 Walnut Valley Unified 8.9 17.4 11.9 21.0 West Covina Unified 9.8 7.2 10.5 10.2 Whittier Union 8.9 12.7 8.9 13.3 William S. Hart Union 12.9 18.4 16.1 21.2 COUNTY 9.4 13.0 11.3 16.6 STATEWIDE 15.5 18.7 16.5 20.5

* Not released or not available

CHANGE BY ETHNIC GROUP

The percentage of high school students completing all courses required for admission to the University of California has increased for all the state’s major racial and ethnic groups. The requirements include U.S. history, four years of English, three years of math, a laboratory science and two years of foreign language.

1985 1989 Percent Percent Ethnic Group Completed Completed American Indian 12.3% 19.2% Asian 42.3% 52.3% Black 17.2% 25.4% Filipino 30.5% 39.3% Hispanic 15.4% 19.5% Pacific Islander 18.8% 24.4% White 27.5% 31.8% Total 25.4% 30.6%

Source: State Dept. of Education