Junior High Basks in No. 1 CAP Test Ranking : Education: Porter school students in Granada Hills scored an average of 301 out of a possible 400 points, highest in L.A. Unified.

Last April, when eighth-grade students at Porter Junior High School in Granada Hills took the California Assessment Program test, “there was a sea of heads bowed down,” recalled William Harper, who teaches Spanish and English at the school. “You could just see the dogged determination.”

It is that determination--along with strong relationships among students, teachers and parents--that school officials credit for Porter’s top ranking in the CAP scores among all Los Angeles Unified School District junior high schools.

“We don’t have wonderful salaries. We don’t have modern buildings and the latest equipment,” school Principal Sherry Breskin said. “What we have is that beautiful bond between adults and students.”

The CAP results, announced Wednesday, provided a bit of welcome news at Porter amid the continuing budget woes and contract disputes that have plagued the district in recent weeks.

Porter students scored an average of 301 out of a possible 400 points, higher than any other school in the district and roughly double that of the lowest-scoring schools. Porter also bucked the districtwide trend of declining scores by increasing its average score by 16 points over last year and by 60 points since the 1985-1986 school year.

The test, given to eighth-graders, is intended to provide a snapshot of a school’s overall academic performance. Individual scores were not released.

Porter’s strongest showing was in math, with a 311 average score. The school scored 309 in writing, 297 in reading, 295 in history and 292 in science.

About one-third of Porter’s 1,500 students in grades seven through nine are in a magnet program that draws gifted children from throughout the district. Breskin acknowledged that the magnet students probably helped boost the school’s average score. Still, she noted, Porter’s average score was higher than at other schools that also have magnet programs.

Though Porter is the highest-scoring Los Angeles Unified school, some schools in other Los Angeles County districts did better. In the Las Virgenes Unified School District, average scores were 319 at Lindero Canyon Middle School and 320 at Wright Middle School. Rosemont Junior High in the Glendale Unified School District had a 331 average score.

Grant Behnke, a state CAP coordinator, cautioned that test results might not be directly comparable between one school and another. Because they differ according to factors such as the socioeconomic status of students, schools are assigned relative rankings that compare their CAP scores to those of similar schools.

Porter’s relative rank was 89%, meaning that its scores were better than 89% of similar schools throughout the state. Such a ranking indicates that “they must have something good going there,” Behnke said.

But Beryl Ward, principal of nearby Northridge Junior High School, is one of many critics who find such rankings suspect. One problem, she said, is that the rankings rely on students for information such as their parents’ education level. “We don’t know if it’s accurate.”

Northridge Junior High had an average CAP score of 198, down 21 points from last year. Ward said scores declined because the school is in the midst of instituting reforms and because it has accepted a large number of new students. In contrast, she said, Porter’s high score might be a result of teachers “teaching to the test.”

“To measure just by standardized tests,” she added, “seems to me to give you a very incomplete picture of what’s going on on campus.”

Nonetheless, students and teachers at Porter were elated after hearing of the high test scores.

Jennifer Prindle, a ninth-grader who took the CAP test last spring, said she believes Porter outranked other schools “because the teachers are so good.”

“They teach us to be ourselves,” ninth-grader Idia Ogida said. “They encourage us to just do our best and not act like anybody else.”

Alva Sainz, the dean of students, advocates the liberal use of positive reinforcement to motivate students. When teaching math to eighth-graders last year, for instance, she gave quarters to students who caught her making mistakes.

In Sally Smith’s English class, students play games and earn points for learning the meaning of words and expressions. Smith said she teaches her students “divergent thinking.”

“It’s a creative type of thinking,” she said. “If you’ve got a problem, there’s more than one way to solve it.”

Assistant Principal Beverly A. Lloyd said teachers meet weekly to coordinate their lesson plans. Students also are encouraged to work in teams.

In Rochelle Markowitz’s seventh-grade science class on Thursday, students broke into groups of four to dissect frogs. One student in each group held the frog while another removed the organs. A third student checked the textbook. Another wrote down the group’s findings.

“That’s the stomach, the liver, the small intestine,” said 12-year-old Nicole Lyons, pointing to small greenish-gray blobs. “We’re looking for the pancreas.”

Another group sliced open a frog stomach to examine the contents. “Ooh, a cockroach,” one student moaned.

Breskin said students at the ethnically mixed school also are encouraged to explore their cultural identities. A few weeks ago, the school held a culture fair. In preparation, students researched their family backgrounds, and on the day of the fair they dressed in ethnic clothing, prepared food and performed for visiting parents.

“There’s a lot of different nationalities here, so you learn about different cultures,” ninth-grader Marissa Edwards said. Her friend, Emerson Toledo, a ninth-grade magnet student who lives in south Los Angeles and boards a school bus each morning at 6, agreed. “We all get along,” Toledo said.