Budget Cuts Blamed for Drop in Scores : Schools: Academic test results for county eighth-graders plunge from two years ago, but they are still above overall state results.

Standardized test results dropped dramatically for eighth-graders throughout San Diego County and California in the first statewide measure of student achievement since 1990, and educators largely blamed budget woes for the disappointing results.

Countywide, 1992 scores on the five tests--in reading, math, history, science and writing--declined significantly from those in 1990, although county averages in all academic areas remain well above the cumulative scores of all state eighth-graders.

But there was no masking the disappointment of teachers and administrators, especially in interpreting the reading test results.

“These scores are definitely a setback,” said Harry Weinberg, superintendent of the San Diego County Office of Education. “I’m disappointed but not surprised.”

Weinberg said the state’s inability to keep education funding constant with inflation and population growth means “class size has increased, special programs have been eliminated, the number of instructional aides has decreased and many families are in crisis.”

“It is unrealistic to assume that these factors do not affect student performance,” he said.

State schools Supt. Bill Honig also blamed the lack of funds, as well as economic problems facing more families because of California’s severe recession.

“The reading scores are the most troubling,” Honig said, noting that they dropped 10 points between 1990 and 1992, erasing most of the statewide gains made in the 1980s, when the scores rose 14 points between 1986 and 1990. County scores remain 6 points above 1986, even though they dropped 13 points between 1990 and 1992.

“These scores show that a major effort must be made to improve performance in courses requiring sophisticated language skills,” Honig said.

In San Diego Unified, the nation’s eighth-largest school district, reading results dropped below the state average by one point, for the first time since the revised California Assessment Program (CAP) began in 1986. The two-year drop for San Diego Unified was 13 points, wiping out all the district’s gain in reading since 1986.

(CAP tests were not given in 1991 because of state budget cuts.)

The scores add emphasis to the concern expressed earlier this year by city schools Supt. Tom Payzant over the lack of reading progress as measured by a less sophisticated standardized test given just to district students.

Payzant asked all 153 district schools in September to draw up special plans to improve reading, in particular for the district’s growing number of Latino and black students, whose scores lag significantly behind those of Asian and white students.

After reviewing those plans, however, he issued another directive last week expressing disappointment that few schools “conveyed how (their ideas) taken together revealed a cohesive set of strategies for meeting the needs of students in reading/language arts. Only about a dozen schools mentioned specific standards that they were using to define expectations for students or benchmarks against which to gauge progress.”

There were some bright spots in the San Diego district, largely for its students in the English-as-a-second-language program, although they pale in contrast to the overall results.

(CAP scores are reported statewide, countywide, for individual school districts and for individual schools, but not for individual students. The tests measure the basic skills of students as groups to see whether the math, English, history, reading and writing curriculum goals set by the state are being met.)

At Mann Middle School in East San Diego, where almost half the students are non-native English speakers, reading scores rose by 24 points for those students now labeled as fluent in English, and almost 40 points for those with still-limited ability.

Similarly, Mann’s neighbor school, Wilson Middle, also showed sharp reading gains for its non-native speakers.

Small student gains in reading were also reported at Marston, Muirlands, DePortola, Roosevelt and Wangenheim middle schools. Among two schools with revamped curricula and hand-picked teaching staffs during the past several years, Gompers Secondary scored significantly higher than O’Farrell Community School, although the results are below district and state averages.

In other county districts, reading scores rose in San Dieguito, Jamul-Dulzura, Ramona and San Ysidro. Ramona showed gains in all five curriculum areas, the only district to do so.

Escondido, Sweetwater, Cajon Valley, San Ysidro and Bonsall dropped so much in reading from 1990 that their scores also dropped below those of six years ago.

But overall during the past six years in San Diego County, math scores have increased 17 points, science 16 points, history 12 points, reading 6 points and writing 8 points, Weinberg said, despite the latest setbacks.

In trying to put the best face on things, he added: “Schools in San Diego County are doing a fine job given their current level of resources. . . . If we receive sufficient funding from the state to forestall a third straight year of budget cuts, we should resume the rapid gains in student learning we made prior to the state’s budget crisis.”