County Students Score Above Average in Testing

About half of Ventura County students in grades two through eight scored at or above the national average in an array of basic skills tested as part of an unprecedented statewide push to gauge the knowledge of public schoolchildren, according to results released late Tuesday.

With state officials posting scores of the historic Stanford 9 exam, educators across the county were gearing up to sift through the results to see how local youngsters compare to their peers across the state.

But most Ventura County students generally performed better than half their national counterparts on the exam, given this spring to students in grades 2 through 11. Only partial results were available late Tuesday night.

Ventura County sixth-graders posted the highest scores, with 53% scoring above the 50th percentile in reading, 55% in math and 57% in language.

That means in those subjects, those students did better than at least 50% of students in a national sample. The 50th percentile is considered the national average.

The lowest scores were posted in math, where fewer than half the students in every grade--with the exception of sixth-graders--scored above the 50th percentile.

“I would anticipate that most students would be a little above average based on our district-level results,” said Ted Bartell, director of research and evaluation for the Ventura County schools system.

“As I view it, that would be quite good,” Bartell added, “particularly in view of the diversity we have in our county.”

The Stanford 9, the first standardized tests in California since 1994, was given to an estimated 4.2 million students statewide, including about 96,000 students in Ventura County.

Of the county students who took the exam, nearly 14,000 were classified as having limited English skills.

Ventura Unified School District Supt. Joseph Spirito said he has been eagerly awaiting statewide results of the exam, which measures skills in reading, mathematics, language and spelling for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

For grades 9 through 11, the test also measures knowledge of science and history.

“I’d like to see how we compare with other counties throughout the state, and I’m also interested in seeing how we compare to schools like ours,” said Spirito.

“I absolutely see value in these tests,” he said. “I think it’s critical that the community see how our schools are doing. We need to use this information as a baseline and then start to make moves toward improving scores year after year.”

Scores for schools across the state were scheduled to be posted on the Internet by the state Department of Education, but that release was delayed by a legal battle in Northern California.

A San Francisco judge last month ordered state officials not to release results after school officials in Berkeley and Oakland objected to the state’s requirement that all students take the exams in English regardless of whether they could speak the language.

However, the order did not pertain to individual school districts, many of which had already released results of the exam.

Ventura County school officials unveiled scores from the exam last month, showing students in Oak Park, Camarillo and the Conejo Valley emerging as the top performers across the county on the basic skills test.

They were the only local districts to score above the 50th percentile in every grade for reading, language, spelling and math.

The Oak Park district, long an academic powerhouse in the region, posted the highest scores, with students ranking no lower than the 61st percentile in all test subjects.

Not surprisingly, the lowest scores were posted by districts with the heaviest concentrations of poor students with limited English, including Fillmore Unified, Oxnard Elementary and Rio Elementary north of Oxnard.

With Tuesday’s widespread release of test scores, educators for the first time in years will now be able to make direct district-by-district and county-by-county comparisons.

Compared to counties of similar size and demographics, Ventura County held its own on the exam.

Students in Contra Costa County, for example, produced similar results, scoring near or above the national average in all grades. However, several grades managed to score above the national average in reading, language and math.

Bartell said he is interested in seeing whether other counties continue a trend seen in Ventura County in which scores generally rise each year in second to eighth grade.

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