Oxnard Schools to Develop Own Math Test

Frustrated with low scores on statewide assessment tests, Oxnard Elementary School District leaders have decided to develop their own eighth-grade math test that they say will be a better measure of their students’ math abilities.

The school district’s board of trustees voted 4 to 1 to retest the district’s 1,200 eighth-graders with the yet-to-be-developed exam that--unlike the statewide test administered last year--would quiz students in Spanish or English.

The district’s quiz would be given in addition to the California Learning Assessment Systems tests, in which state students were measured not against each other but according to performance standards set by a task force that included educators, school board members, business leaders, parents and testing experts. The tests were given last spring in grades four, eight and 10.

State officials said Oxnard is the first district they know of that has reacted to the California Learning Assessment Systems quiz by writing its own test.

In Oxnard, district officials criticized the statewide test for failing to correctly assess basic math skills.

“The state test gives too much emphasis on reasoning and it fails to deal with basic arithmetic,” District Supt. Norman R. Brekke said. “We need to know whether our students can do basic math.”

About 42% of the district’s students have limited English proficiency, trustee Mary Barreto said. Such students were at a disadvantage understanding questions dealing with reasoning on the English-only test, officials said.

The board’s move Wednesday came the same day the state released the results of the assessment tests, in which Oxnard’s eighth-grade math scores ranked 14th out of the 17 districts in Ventura County.

Overall, the Oxnard school district scored below the state average in most areas.

The board may later decide to design new tests for all grades in writing, reading and math but decided to begin with the eighth-grade math tests.

“We need to test our students to know where they are,” trustee Jack T. Fowler said. “If we get good results in this test, we will try to implement tests in writing and reading for all grades.”

Fowler, who suggested to the board that the district implement its own test, said the state test does a good job in measuring students’ abilities to solve problems but it fails to test basic skills.

“The state test has moved from specific questions and answers to more creative thinking,” Fowler said. “We have to make sure first that students can handle basic math before problem-solving math.”

The board directed the school district to put everything else aside and work on developing the test. Students should take the test within the next two weeks.

Up to four district math teachers will design the exam, which will include eight problems--two each in subtraction, multiplication, division and addition, said Kathy Cooper, a school district employee in charge of developing the test.

The district will either hire an outside contractor to score the tests or rely on volunteers from the Parent Teachers Assn.

If the PTA volunteers score the tests, it will cost the district about $100 to develop and implement the test, Fowler said.

“There will be no additional cost beyond $100, which would cover the paper supply to print the tests,” Fowler said.

District board Chairman James Suter, who voted against implementing the new test, agreed that the state assessment did not correctly evaluate students’ abilities. But he said the board could obtain an assessment of students’ performance through other means.

“All the board has to do is to ask the teachers,” said Suter, who was a teacher for 35 years. “The teachers always know what their students can do because they always check through weekly quizzes or tests.”

But Fowler said he cannot accept that district students are doing as badly as the state assessment results show.

“I have confidence that our teachers are doing a good job and the students can do much better than they did in the state test,” Fowler said.

“Now, if we don’t do well in this test, then yes, we have a problem,” Fowler said.

Some Oxnard schoolteachers agreed that the statewide test does not reflect the students’ math skills.

“Our kids can do better with basic math than they did in the state test,” said Barbara McFayden, an eighth-grade math teacher at Fremont Intermediate School. “They need to be tested on what they have been taught.”