Be Thankful for Small Blessings : Bellwether SAT scores rise a bit--cheering on public school advocates

For the second straight year, after a period of declining scores, there has been some very modest overall improvement in the Scholastic Aptitude Test results nationwide. That’s an encouraging sign. We hope that the small but steady gains will be permanent and serve to cheer on those who believe in public schools, and are working to make them better.

There is probably enough discouraging news in the results to satisfy critics determined to fault public schools for a host of societal ills. Surely, the public schools are not where they ought to be now in achievement. But overall, schools seem to be holding the line.

California’s scores remained relatively stable, for example, with math scores the same as last year and verbal scores falling only a point, despite a large population with limited English capability.

In Orange County, urbanized Santa Ana Unified had the lowest averages on both verbal and math, but showed substantial improvement in the verbal section over last year.

In the current political climate, such a gain, or even maintaining position, is important.

It is evident that there is a crisis of confidence in California’s public education. The school voucher initiative that will be on the November ballot is an example. It would allow parents to use state tax money for private school tuition.

The state is trying to educate an international student body in a time of deep fiscal crisis. And many of its public school bureaucracies are perceived as being too large and unresponsive, especially in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school system, where frustration has led to a move to dismantle the system. The many difficulties of the Los Angeles Unified School District no doubt are reflected in its students’ SAT showings, which were well below state and national scores.

But amid the public schools’ failings, and their troubling labor issues, campus violence and vast bureaucracies, there are hopeful signs, such as the overall SAT results.

Most are little victories, undramatic and the result of dogged determination. That’s true whether it’s the “painfully slow academic recovery” cited by Donald M. Stewart, president of the College Board, or the hard-earned results of the LEARN program, a beacon of grass-roots educational reform.

Even so, the temptation for the public to throw up its hands in the face of frustration with the schools is strong.

In June, for example, a Times Orange County Poll found that a full 57% of respondents backed the school voucher initiative. But voters like these--whose students in fact generally outscored their peers across the country on the SAT--can also find plenty of reasons to support public schools, which need all the support they can get.