Test Scores Leave Parents Testy

* Re “Test Scores Show Wide Gaps in Students’ Skills,” July 23:

With a fourth-grader at Van Buren Elementary, I read your article with interest. The middle and high schools my son is scheduled to attend, Kraemer Middle and Valencia High School, showed very poorly. They also have high percentages of “limited English proficient” (LEP) students.

A more valuable report to the public would rank English-speaking students as a group apart from LEP students. It reflects poorly on the school administrators and teachers to be affiliated with a school showing so poorly overall. It also hides what may be a greater problem, whether we are even minimally successful in mainstreaming foreign language students.

I would like to think the school’s administrators and teachers are doing a good job educating my child, who does speak English and has been performing at levels above the national average at Van Buren. A further breakout by language would assist us in evaluating our schools, administrators and teachers.

MIKE BALL

Yorba Linda

* I came home from work today and found my son’s test results from the Stanford 9 Achievement Test in my mailbox. Total Reading: 87; Total Math: 83; Language: 89; Spelling: 49. Irvine Unified School District: We have a problem.

CATHRYN LEFF

Irvine