State Asks Court to Allow Full Release of School Test Results

The state has asked the California Supreme Court to permit the immediate release of the full scores for more than 4 million students on the standardized tests given public school students this spring.

A June 25 restraining order by the San Francisco Superior Court has prevented the state from publishing scores for students categorized as less than fluent in English. The state Court of Appeal later rejected a petition to have that order thrown out.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the State Board of Education and Department of Education argue that many school districts already have made the scores public--including the Berkeley Unified School District, which was one of the districts that went to court to block the state’s release of scores.

Those districts argued that the scores should not be made public because the English-language tests would cast non-fluent students and their schools in an unfair light.

As a result of the court order, the state was prevented from complying with the testing law, which required it to make grade-by-grade and school-by-school scores public by June 30.

Last week, officials issued statewide summaries of the scores of students who are native English speakers or have learned enough English to be considered fluent.

In its petition, the state says the lower court “abused its discretion by issuing a prior restraint” that kept it from fulfilling its “constitutionally protected right to keep the public informed.”