A Better Report Card for State’s High Schools

California’s high schools earned improved marks, especially for sending more students to college, on the annual report cards released Tuesday by the state Department of Education.

The performance data on 844 high schools also showed that more students are graduating, more are passing college prep courses and more are doing well on demanding Advanced Placement tests.

But the improvement on all measures was slight and, for the most part, reflected what is already well known about school performance--districts that are more affluent and schools that are selective in accepting students generally rack up higher scores on tests and do better at sending their graduates to college.

Moreover, the fact that more students went on to college may have less to do with them working harder in class than the improved California economy, which has meant that officials could increase the budgets of state colleges--enabling them to accept more students.

Overall, 60% of the class of 1995 enrolled in colleges of some type, up 2 percentage points from 1993. The California State University system increased its share the most, by 1.6 percentage points, while the UC system saw an increase of less than 1 percentage point.

The number of students enrolling in the state’s community colleges dipped slightly during the period measured, but a system spokesman said enrollment has risen since then.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, who released the data, said “it’s a relief to everybody not to be falling,” but downplayed the significance of the slight improvement shown. In fact, she used the release of the data to beat the drum for new statewide tests that actually determine students’ abilities in reading, writing and math.

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The state lacks such a test system and has to evaluate high schools by measures such as how likely students are to drop out or enroll in colleges. This is the third year the state has released the California Performance Reports, which are designed to highlight trends, though some of the data is more than a year old.

For the first time this year, the state included the percentage of students at each school passing the advanced science, math and humanities courses required to get into the UC and Cal State systems.

About 35% of the 1995 graduates completed such courses. But some higher-education officials have questioned how well the classes prepare students for tough college-level work. The Cal State system reported last month that a record number of its freshmen have to take remedial courses, 51% in math and 47% in English.

Like the state as a whole, the schools in Los Angeles County raised their performance slightly on most measures. A majority of the 51 school districts with high schools in the county sent more of their students to state universities, reversing the trend of recent years.

The same was true in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which managed to exceed the state’s performance in several areas. During 1995, more than 48% of Los Angeles high school students passed college prep courses, a figure district officials expect will increase.

“A major thrust has been the college-bound courses and it looks like the district’s jumped into that with both feet,” said retiring Supt. Sid Thompson. “We will have eliminated by June almost all of the remedial courses and that means that these kids will be taking the solid core subjects, the lab sciences and so forth.”

The only negative news for Los Angeles was a slight increase in the district’s dropout rate. According to the new data, less than two-thirds of the district’s ninth graders will make it all the way to graduation in 2000.

“I’m not going to alibi that,” Thompson said. “I’m unhappy with that.”

The state performance reports also help identify schools that are likely to get some heat when Thompson’s replacement is selected any day. Over the past week, all three superintendent candidates have pledged to issue detailed school report cards--or rank schools top to bottom--to motivate the laggards and recognize the high-fliers.

Perhaps surprisingly, officials of schools such as Manual Arts High--which, according to the state figures, managed to graduate only a third of its students in 1995--said it is helpful to have higher-ups draw attention to their problems.

Wendell C. Greer Jr., Manual Arts principal, said the rate has improved since the state figures were gathered, in part because Thompson spotlighted dropouts in his districtwide improvement plan known as the “Call to Action.”

Attendance figures and college-bound rates also are up, Greer said, and standardized test scores are somewhat better, though not enough to meet the target set by Thompson.

“He laid down the criteria,” Greer said. “You better hit the target or get close to it.”

Marilyn Goodman, a counselor at Jordan High School in Watts, said past performance reports prompted her school to begin targeting sophomores to get them ready to apply for college. “There’s more understanding on their part of where they can afford to go and of the need to take more of the harder classes early on to prepare,” she said.

According to the latest reports, the percentage of Jordan High students that qualified for UC quadrupled and the share headed to the Cal State system doubled between 1993 and 1995.

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The reports also demonstrate that Los Angeles’ 49 high schools include some of the county’s best. Six of its schools are among the top 20 in the percentage of their graduates who wind up enrolling at UC campuses.

The Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, for example, ranked 18th in the county in terms of the number of its graduates going to UC. “We’re proud of what we’ve done and accomplished, but we still have a ways to go,” said Principal Larry Rubin.

The Arcadia Unified School District had the highest percentage of its students enter UC campuses of any in the county--27%. Superintendent Terrence Towner said the district has a long tradition of sending large numbers of students to UC.

But it’s not mere tradition. “We don’t consciously set out to say, ‘Go to UC,’ ” Towner said, “but our graduation requirements, our preparation of our kids are geared to UC, because our feeling is that if they can get into UC, they can get into any system.”

The percentage of South Pasadena High School graduates admitted to UC rose dramatically to over 25%. But officials there were slow to jump to conclusions.

“It’s nice to take credit, but you really can’t until you look at what the numbers really mean,” said Assistant Supt. Anita Thompson.

Times staff writer Peter Hong contributed to this story.

Results for individual L.A. County campuses. B3-B4