No Marked Rise in Charter School Test Scores Found

The first comprehensive review of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s nine charter schools--presented to the Board of Education on Thursday--documented marked improvement in attendance, integration and parental involvement.

But it found no corresponding increase in student test scores at the seven elementary schools measured, even though under state law improving academic performance is one of the primary reasons for establishing the largely independent campuses.

The review found more parents volunteering at schools and serving on school councils at all of the charter campuses. The schools that had promised in their charter contracts to improve integration by enrolling more minority students had succeeded. And all of the charter schools that had classroom space available registered enrollment gains and higher student attendance.

But school board member David Tokofsky said Thursday that those accomplishments must produce academic improvements if the charter experiment is to be considered a success. “The goal ultimately is going to be achievement instead of the other things, which are really means to an end,” he said.

Charter experts cautioned against measuring academic achievement solely through test scores, especially this early in most of the schools’ existences. It has been just three years since the passage of the California law permitting charter schools to operate relatively free of local and state control, and most of the schools tested are less than 2 years old.

But the district needs to find other ways to assess the performance of its charter schools, said board President Mark Slavkin. “We need to nail down a set of indicators . . . that provide meaning, so the community at large can see if we’ve met a goal, not just that we feel good about what we’re doing,” he said.

According to 1995 test scores, the local charter school that improved the least is the one most frequently acclaimed: Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, which was commended for academic achievement last fall with a Distinguished School award from the state.

On the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, Vaughn’s student scores registered more declines than increases in reading, math and language, comparing 1995 to 1994 results.

Vaughn’s principal, Yvonne Chan, attributed the drop in test scores to her decision to test all the school’s students, including those recently in bilingual classes and those being moved into regular classes from separate special education programs.

Vaughn administered the test to nearly twice as many fourth-graders in 1995, for instance, as it did in 1994, which may have lowered the school’s median scores.

Overall in Los Angeles Unified, test score changes in elementary-level charters were uneven between 1994 and 1995, with no schools showing marked increases across all grade levels.

A similar lack of measurable improvement was found previously in a Times analysis of schools involved in the district’s largest reform effort, LEARN.

That lack of obvious student improvement on charter campuses is likely to raise concerns about the need for the autonomous schools, just at a time when the charter movement’s future is already in question.

Next month, the State Board of Education will debate whether to lift the statewide 100-school limit to allow more campuses to qualify for charter status. And state legislation that could place more restrictions on the schools is expected to be introduced in the spring.

Los Angeles Unified also anticipates more applications for charter status following last month’s school board approval of the nation’s first charter complex, which includes eight schools in Pacific Palisades. Other clusters of schools, including those feeding into Dorsey and Crenshaw highs, are studying the concept.

Supt. Sid Thompson said he will seek board approval to hire an outside consultant to develop a “viable assessment” tool for charter schools by next November.

Palisades High School, which began gradually moving its students into a charter program in 1993, showed gains in reading and language scores, but losses in math. The ninth charter school, the Accelerated Charter near downtown, joined the program just last year, so had no scores to compare.

Critics say scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills are an imperfect way to judge the performance of the kinds of innovative programs offered at some charter or reform campuses, because the exam measures basic skill acquisition rather than more complex factors such as reasoning skills.

“People have faith in [the test’s] data because it’s a pure number, but it’s probably one of the weakest data sources you can look at for charter schools,” said Eric Premack, a charter school consultant.

“What are the kids doing? Can they write? Do they know how to turn on a computer? How do they work with other kids and adults? Those are vital, vital things heading into the 21st century” that the comprehensive test does not measure, he said.

But many also concede that since the death of the California Learning Assessment System test last year, the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills is one of the few broad measures school districts can consult. A new statewide assessment, approved by the Legislature in October, will not be ready for four years.