Capistrano Students Will Be Put to the Test--Twice

Students in Orange County’s third-largest school system will probably get hit with a double whammy next spring: two separate standardized tests to gauge their mastery of basic skills.

The unusual situation has arisen because officials of Capistrano Unified School District plan to continue using a skills test they developed themselves, even though the state earlier this month ordered all school districts to administer another test marketed by a Texas-based publisher.

Capistrano Unified officials insist that their test--one of only a handful of state-certified exams written by individual school districts in recent years--is more in tune with what their schools teach and provides more useful information to parents and teachers about the growth of each student.

“We’re committed to it,” said Peter J. Espinosa, president of the 40,000-student district’s board of trustees. “We want to be able to be accountable to parents as our primary goal. What the state imposes on top of that, that’s just something we’ve got to deal with.”

Across California, schools are gearing up to deal with the state’s new testing mandate.

On Nov. 14, the state Board of Education approved the Stanford 9 test series, published by Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement. That test, championed by Gov. Pete Wilson, is intended to give parents, educators and the public one yardstick to measure how public schools are performing.

Students from grades two through 11 will be tested in reading, spelling and math; the three upper grades will be tested in those areas plus history and science.

State officials have said the Stanford test will be given in May, the first statewide exam since the collapse of the California Learning Assessment System in 1994. That 2-year-old program was dropped in part because it did not give marks for individual students.

Since then, school districts have chosen whatever standardized test they want--one of several offered by publishing companies or, in the case of Capistrano Unified, its own.

Capistrano Unified spans southernmost Orange County, a fast-growing region from San Clemente to parts of Rancho Santa Margarita.

While many school districts will be put to the trouble of testing transition in coming months, few--if any--have taken the position of Capistrano Unified.

The district developed its test in 1994-95, spending about $160,000. Of that amount, officials have said, three-fourths has been reimbursed by the state. Annual costs, they say, are now minimal because the test booklets have already been printed.

The district gives its test twice a year to students in grades two through eight, once in October and once in March or April. The spring exam is also given to ninth- and 10th-graders. Officials say the results are compared to show precisely how much students have learned during the year.

Jeff Bristow, the district’s director of testing and evaluation, said he doubts that the state test will yield “anywhere near the data that parents are now getting.”

But the double testing in the spring could mean some headaches for teachers as students spend hours with multiple-choice tests.

“Some teachers in my school will be upset that we’re taking away class time to give two tests instead of one,” said one middle school math teacher, who asked not to be identified. “It kind of messes things up. Every time we have a special schedule it upsets the kids’ routine.”