Higher SAT Scores Give L.A. Schools a Partial Victory

Scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test rose for the first time in four years in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But the slight increase did not bring the district back to its 1991-92 level, and left it farther behind state and national averages.

Such mixed results are viewed as a partial victory in the urban district, where test takers are twice as likely as their peers statewide to come from non-English-speaking families that tend to be poorer and less well-educated.

“What we’re seeing here are the embryonic results of our reform efforts,” said Ruben Zacarias, deputy superintendent of the 660-school system. “Although we’re pleased that we’re showing some improvement, we’re not at all satisfied with the overall results.”

In other Los Angeles County districts, there were also signs of high achievement. In the San Gabriel Valley’s Glendora Unified School District, for example, scores topped both the state and national averages, with a 520 score in verbal and 534 in math. But in the Centinela Valley Union School District, which encompasses the communities of Hawthorne and Lawndale, the scores were 424 in verbal and 442 in math, 60 to 70 points lower than the state and national levels.

In Los Angeles Unified, the district’s combined verbal and math scores were 880 points in 1995-96, up from an average of 873 the year before but still trailing the 1991-92 combined score of 890.

When broken down by school, the results were sometimes predictable. Two suburban schools landed in the top echelon, with Van Nuys High achieving the district’s top scores and the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies registering the biggest improvement on the verbal portion of the test over the past five years.

Yet there were encouraging trends at some inner-city schools as well. Jordan High in South-Central Los Angeles experienced the largest five-year jump in math scores and Lincoln High just east of downtown showed the biggest one-year increase in both the math and verbal portions of the test.

At Jordan, Assistant Principal Janet Salem attributed the improvement in math scores to the phasing out of remedial classes--which the school began eliminating three years ago--and to the campus’ increased emphasis on college prep courses for all students.

“The idea is you’re learning in any class so you might as well be learning at a higher level,” Salem said. “It’s exciting to build and see some results.”

Salem is the first to acknowledge that Jordan has a long way to go. The school’s average combined math and verbal score of 712 is among the district’s lowest and would keep many students out of competitive four-year colleges.

The chronically low standardized test scores at Jordan and other inner-city schools may reflect the large number of students who begin school speaking Spanish and struggle with English throughout high school, Salem said. But she also complained that the College Board exams do not adequately assess her students’ abilities.

Statistics about those Los Angeles Unified students who took the SAT offer a glimpse of the challenges facing even the district’s top students--those who have set their sights on college.

* Two-thirds of the local SAT takers started school speaking a language other than English, compared with a third statewide and less than 20% nationally.

* One out of three of the students have parents who did not graduate from high school, compared with one in 10 in California and one in 25 across the United States.

* Two-thirds of Los Angeles Unified students reported annual family earnings of less than $30,000 a year. That is more than twice the proportion of students reporting that income level nationwide, even though the cost of living is higher in Los Angeles than elsewhere in the country.

Even where test results improved, the College Board report identified some troubling areas.

At Lincoln High, where average verbal and math scores each rose 25 points, to nearly 800 points combined, the number of students taking the basic college entrance exam has decreased every year for the past five years.

“That is of great concern and . . . I want to take a closer look at it,” said school board President Jeff Horton, a former high school English teacher. “I’ve always said the average score doesn’t help a student, but taking the test might help that student.”

Los Angeles exceeded the nation in the percentage of seniors taking the SAT. Nationwide, 41% of seniors took the SAT, while at the 53 Los Angeles high schools and magnet schools in the report, 43% took the 1995-96 test, a slight dip from the 44% tested five years ago.

But many campuses had greater declines, and the phenomenon was not limited to inner-city schools.

At Van Nuys High, the district’s top scorer on the SAT with a combined math and verbal score of nearly 1,100 points, 10% fewer students took the test this year than the year before. Assistant Principal Sandra English was hard-pressed to say why.

“I have no idea,” English said. “We always encourage them to take the SAT and take it early so that they can take it again if they don’t do well.”

Identifying why the school typically scores well was less of a mystery.

With magnet programs in math/science, performing arts and medical careers, Van Nuys High is known for a high-powered academic approach and an array of demanding advanced placement classes, which enroll 1,400 students.

At the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Reseda, another magnet school, Principal Jacqueline Joyce Purdy credited the school’s demanding English courses, and its ability to attract motivated students from across the district, with its improvement.

The school’s verbal exam score rose 47 points in five years, to 518.

But the rise also reflects the student body makeup, Purdy said. Magnet schools tend to attract a greater proportion of students who come from better-educated, English-speaking households.

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1996 SAT Scores

Here are the average scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test for 1996 graduating seniors in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Scores can range from 200 to 800 in each of the test’s two sections. Comparing high schools based exclusively on averages is strongly discouraged by the testing agency because the percentage of students tested in each school can vary widely and skew the averages. Other Los Angeles County school district scores will be published at a later date.

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AVG. VERBAL AVG. MATH 1996 National Average 505 508 1995 National Average* 504 506 1996 State Average 495 511 1995 State Average 492 509 1996 LAUSD Average 431 449 1995 LAUSD Average 425 448

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LOS ANGELES COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICTS

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AVG. AVG. VERBAL MATH Banning 399 406 Bell 391 401 Belmont 374 396 Birmingham 468 487 Bravo 458 483 Canoga Park 425 468 Carson 412 428 Chatsworth 488 516 Cleveland 507 499 Crenshaw 382 373 Dorsey 378 375 Dwntn. Bus. Magnet 397 425 Eagle Rock 443 473 El Camino 513 539 Fairfax 433 477 Francis Polytechnic 409 424 Franklin 389 409 Fremont 339 354 Gardena 410 429 Garfield 375 391 Granada Hills 485 525 Grant 446 475 Hamilton 474 461 Hollywood 404 430 Huntington Park 393 399 Jefferson 348 367 Jordan 340 372 Kennedy 443 476 King Drew Med. Magnet -- --** Lincoln 381 443 Locke 344 365 Los Angeles 399 441 Los Angeles CES 483 471 Manual Arts 348 356 Marshall 414 443 Monroe 451 466 Narbonne 484 515 North Hollywood 473 473 Palisades 492 496 Reseda 431 459 Roosevelt 361 385 San Fernando 401 427 San Pedro 465 462 Sherman Oaks CES 518 515 South Gate 412 418 Sylmar 395 402 Taft 478 513 University 479 507 Van Nuys 538 559 Venice 473 495 Verdugo Hills 433 445 Washington Prep. 376 365 Westchester 433 430 Wilson 395 415

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* The 1995 scores have been recalibrated to use a new scoring mechanism and thus are different from those reported last year.

** Average scores reported when 50 or more students were tested.

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District