ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : What the CAP Scores Tell Us

The 1992 California Assessment Program scores have been released, and Orange County’s eighth-graders didn’t fare as well as they did two years ago. Nor, for that matter, did their peers in California as a whole. But there were bright spots on which Orange County school officials can build.

In many schools, for example, students exhibited good writing skills--often better than the reading skills. This at first seems puzzling because the two are so closely tied. But CAP officials say they believe that innovations in writing instruction may be moving faster than in reading instruction.

That shows that good teaching and curricula can make a big difference in how quickly students learn the basic skills they will need as adults. But it also presents a challenge not only to schools but to parents, who need to put greater emphasis on reading and steer their children away from television and other such leisure-time activities.

Although 1992 CAP scores in most districts were still above those of the mid-1980s, the decline in the last two years is ominous. It’s too early to tell if the change is a blip or the start of a downward spiral.

State Schools Supt. Bill Honig blamed the overall decline in the state on inadequate school funding, which has led to more students per classroom and fewer resources for teachers. Scores in many districts, including Santa Ana Unified and Westminster, also have been affected by a huge influx of immigrants, which has presented special language, poverty and other problems.

The challenges will be even greater in the coming years as demographics continue to change. Next spring, the multiple-choice CAP tests will be revised to emphasize writing skills and problem-solving and will be expanded to include students in fourth, eighth and 10th grades. Now is a good time for schools to use CAP scores to assess what has been working well and build on that.