L.A. High Schools Get Mixed Marks in Statewide Study : Education: Of the 55 rated, more than half rank behind similar campuses in preparing students for college. But most magnet schools outshine the competition.

More than half the high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District are doing worse than similar schools across the state at preparing their students for college, but others--including four of the district’s six magnet high schools--are performing far above their counterparts in other cities.

Fifty-five of the district’s high schools were included in the state’s annual measurement of high school achievement, which combines results of several standardized tests with such factors as completion records on college preparatory courses and graduation and dropout rates.

This year for the first time, the state publicly released an average score that can be used to rank the schools, although state analysts cautioned against placing too much value on such ratings.

“Just because a school has a high performance rating doesn’t mean it’s the best school in the state or the district,” said Paula Wenzl, an education consultant with the state Department of Education. “It just means that it scored highest on these tests this particular year.”

The California High School Performance Report scored every school in the state based on data from the 1992-93 school year, then compared it to 100 other schools with similar student populations.

By that comparative measure--which included the percentage of students with limited English skills and the percentage whose families receive welfare--29 Los Angeles Unified schools were below average and 20 were above average. Six were at or near average.

Los Angeles Unified administrators said the findings neither surprised nor depressed them, but rather bolstered their resolve to continue education reforms that include decentralizing the 640,000-student district.

“It tells me what I kind of knew already: We’ve got a huge problem going,” Supt. Sidney A. Thompson said. “I’m the first to say we’ve got a long way to go.”

Thompson suggested that the weighting for similar student populations may not have adequately compensated for challenges faced by urban Los Angeles teen-agers, such as the temptations of gangs and drugs.

But he said he was pleased by the high ranking of the district’s college-bound students, who scored above the statewide average in both college preparatory class completions and attendance at University of California or California State University campuses.

“The challenge to this school district is what we’re doing with the students who are not college bound,” Thompson said. “They drop out, they fail in school, they’re bored in school, they also have to work because the family needs to pay the rent. . . . That is the real telling challenge.”

Among the district’s top-ranking schools, particularly striking was the four magnet high schools.

Two of those campuses--the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies and the King/Drew Medical Magnet in Watts--were rated first and second in the district and performed well above schools of similar compositions statewide.

Those two campuses also are by far the smallest high schools in the district, with 485 and 248 students, respectively. Most other high schools have at least 1,000 students and sometimes more than 4,000.

Two other magnet high schools--Bravo Medical Magnet east of Downtown and the Downtown Business Magnet--both performed better than schools elsewhere with similar student bodies.

The highest-ranked school in the state report also is a magnet school: Gretchen Whitney High School in Cerritos, in the neighboring ABC Unified School District. But Whitney admits only talented students who score high on a standardized test.

Educators and administrators said that even without such selective entrance requirements, Los Angeles Unified’s magnet students tend to fare better in surveys because their students have chosen the schools. Once admitted, they remain motivated by curriculum tailored to their interests and by contact with professionals in their fields of study.

“When they see the career possibilities ahead of them, then high school is not just something to be gotten through, it’s a step on the way to a career,” said Richard Battaglia, magnet program coordinator for Los Angeles Unified.

The district’s top-ranked Center for Enriched Studies in the Fairfax district is no stranger to academic honors. Last year it became the first secondary school in Los Angeles Unified to win the prestigious National Blue Ribbon School designation from the U.S. Department of Education.

Principal Marion B. Collins, who as head counselor helped open the center as the district’s first specialized or “magnet” school in 1977, on Tuesday cited several factors in the school’s success. They include the individual attention made possible by its small size and its low turnover rates among teachers and students, its academic orientation and its dedicated staff and parents.

“It takes real dedication for teachers to work as hard as ours do,” Collins said.

She also had high praise for the parents, who send their youngsters from all over the sprawling district and who make it clear that school is a priority.

At the other end of the spectrum, even when the significant obstacles faced by their students are considered, a number of Los Angeles schools ranked dismally low.

The bottom-ranking high school was Locke in South Los Angeles, built as part of the recovery plan after the 1965 Watts riots. Phone calls to Locke’s principal were not returned Tuesday.

Also settling to the bottom were four other high schools located in poorer areas of Los Angeles: Jefferson in South-Central, Manual Arts near USC, Jordan in Watts and Hollywood High.

Like Locke, the four have high dropout rates, according to the state report, ranging from 52% at Jefferson to more than 73% at Manual Arts. Both Jordan and Locke recorded a decline in college preparatory course enrollment.

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Statewide, the picture was far rosier, however, with all indicators up from the first ranked study--which was released only to schools in 1990--except for declines in enrollment at both University of California and state university campuses. State analysts attributed that decline in part to increased fees at those institutions.

The report provided fuel for school-choice advocates, including those who back the school voucher concept under which parents would be awarded vouchers that could be used at public or private schools.

Although a voucher initiative was rejected by voters last November, Los Angeles Unified began permitting parents to choose any school within the district beginning last spring.

Districtwide, the most requested schools were all in the San Fernando Valley: Taft High in Woodland Hills, and Nobel Middle School and Castlebay Lane Elementary, both in Northridge.

But parent choice did not mirror the state performance report findings. Taft, for instance, ranked below nearby El Camino Real High in Woodland Hills and Birmingham High in Van Nuys.

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.

* SCHOOL SCORES, B2

Ranking L.A.’s

High Schools

The state Department of Education on Tuesday released data comparing how high schools are preparing their students for college. The report includes scores for 55 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District as well as a comparison score for other schools statewide with similar student populations.

PERFORMANCE COMPARISON SCHOOLS ABOVE AVERAGE SCORE SCORE Los Angeles Center 60.8 51.9 for Enriched Studies, Fairfax King-Drew Medical Magnet, Watts 53.1 37.6 El Camino Real, 53.0 46.5 Woodland Hills Westchester, 52.5 46.6 Westchester Birmingham, Van Nuys 50.9 41.1 Granada Hills, 50.6 47.7 Granada Hills University, West Los Angeles 49.8 45.6 Hamilton, West Los Angeles 49.2 44.8 Bravo Medical Magnet, 48.6 38.5 Boyle Heights Chatsworth, Chatsworth 48.1 45.9 Taft, Woodland Hills 47.6 45.1 Cleveland, Reseda 45.0 42.5 Van Nuys, Van Nuys 43.1 41.7 Venice, Venice 42.4 39.4 Reseda, Reseda 42.3 40.1 Garfield, 41.4 35.9 East Los Angeles North Hollywood, 40.7 38.5 North Hollywood Lincoln, Lincoln Heights 39.9 35.5 South Gate, South Gate 38.3 35.9 Downtown Business Magnet 36.7 32.7 SCHOOL NEAR AVERAGE Pacific Palisades, 47.1 47.7 Pacific Palisades Eagle Rock, Eagle Rock 41.3 41.7 Narbonne, Harbor City 40.1 39.4 Carson, Carson 39.1 38.8 Franklin, Highland Park 36.4 36.5 Bell, Bell 35.2 35.6 SCHOOLS BELOW AVERAGE Sherman Oaks Center 43.8 46.4 for Enriched Studies Kennedy, Granada Hills 39.1 40.4 Grant, Van Nuys 38.1 39.2 Valley Alternative Magnet, 38.1 45.9 Van Nuys Marshall, Los Feliz 37.7 39.0 Canoga Park, Canoga Park 36.2 39.3 Monroe, Sepulveda 36.0 39.3 San Pedro, San Pedro 36.0 39.9 Fairfax, Wilshire 35.8 41.8 Verdugo Hills, Tujunga 35.6 42.0 Washington, Athens 34.8 37.4 Belmont, Central City 34.4 36.4 Roosevelt, Eastside 34.1 36.0 San Fernando, Pacoima 34.0 36.3 Crenshaw, Southwest 33.6 38.9 Los Angeles Banning, Wilmington 33.3 37.0 Dorsey, Southwest 32.7 37.7 Los Angeles Gardena, Gardena 32.7 41.7 Wilson, Lincoln Heights 32.4 36.3 Francis Polytechnic, 31.0 36.7 Sun Valley Fremont, South-Central 30.9 36.0 Huntington Park, Huntington Park 30.5 36.3 Los Angeles, Los Angeles 29.7 38.1 Sylmar, Sylmar 29.2 36.7 Hollywood, Hollywood 28.7 37.3 Jordan, Watts 28.3 36.2 Manual Arts, South-Central 25.2 36.3 Jefferson, South-Central 24.9 36.3 Locke, South Los Angeles 24.8 36.1

Source: California High School Performance Report, state Department of Education