1 Class Cleared of Cheating at Charter School

Los Angeles Unified School District officials Friday completed the first leg of their investigation into cheating allegations at a nationally acclaimed charter school, exonerating a fourth-grade class of any wrongdoing on the Stanford Nine standardized test.

But the district officials were continuing their probe into test irregularities in two other classes at the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. Questions remain over whether answers were doctored in first- and third-grade classes on the Spanish-language Aprenda test, which was administered with the Stanford Nine for the first time last spring.

“There were no discrepancies found with the fourth-grade Stanford Nine teacher,” said Joe Rao, the school district’s reform coordinator. “We are still working on the others.”

The district, which hopes to wrap up its inquiry next week, released Vaughn’s Stanford Nine test scores Friday, nearly two weeks after test results for schools districtwide were released.

Rao hand-delivered the scores to Vaughn Principal Yvonne Chan.

Those scores showed mixed results on the Stanford Nine for students of Vaughn--a charter school that has attracted widespread attention from educators and political figures, including Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Four of the school’s five grades posted higher scores than their counterparts at neighboring campuses in reading, language, spelling and math.

For example, the median first-grade score at Vaughn was in the 36th percentile nationally in the four subjects combined, the highest composite rank any grade at the school achieved. That compared to the 25th percentile for the median first-grade score in the school district’s administrative cluster of schools covering Pacoima and San Fernando.

But Vaughn students showed less impressive results compared to students districtwide. Only Vaughn’s first- and fifth-graders outscored their district counterparts in the four subjects.

In fact, Vaughn students ranked about the same nationally overall as other LAUSD elementary school pupils.

For example, the middle scoring second-grader at Vaughn ranked in the 31st percentile nationally in the four subjects, the same as LAUSD second-graders as a whole.

Fourth-grade proved to be a trouble spot. Vaughn’s fourth-graders ranked in the 12th percentile in reading and the 11th percentile in math, placing them at the bottom of the academic barrel. Chan attributed the low scores to the fact that fourth grade includes many Spanish speakers who are making the transition to classes taught in English.

Chan sought to place the most positive spin on the test scores.

“We are getting closer to average and we also can prove against all odds--poverty, limited English, illiterate parents--that you can still be one of the better schools within your own immediate cluster,” she said. “We are going in the right direction.”

Vaughn achieved mixed results on another key measure: its percentage of students who rank at or above the 50th percentile, the point at which students are considered to be working at grade level.

While greater percentages of its students achieved that mark than at neighboring campuses, four of its five grades were outdone by district students as a whole.

Even as Chan evaluated her school’s test scores, and as the existing investigation continued, Chan said she was pursuing her own plans to have her students tested once again, with the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills--next month and again in May.

“It’s an opportunity to hold teachers accountable,” Chan said.

District officials said they have no problem with Chan’s using the CTBS test, since charter schools have more independence in setting curricula and other policy, but the test cannot not be substituted for the Stanford Nine or Aprenda tests, they said.