Incentives Paid Off in High Scores, Educators Say

To get their students to read, some principals will go to any extreme.

They will promise to kiss a pig if their students log in a certain amount of reading time at home each academic year. Or they will holler a story to them from the school’s rooftop.

Although a small gesture, the extra incentive may have helped boost Ventura County reading scores on the Stanford 9 test. The nationwide exam measures student performance from kindergarten to eighth grade in mathematics, language, reading and spelling. It also tests students in ninth through 11th grades in those subjects, along with science and history.

Moorpark Unified School District board Vice President David Pollock thinks so. He attributed teachers and principals going out on a limb for part of the reason some district schools scored well above average in the reading portion of the test. Fourth-graders at Arroyo West Elementary School, for example, scored in the 63 percentile--meaning they surpassed six out of every 10 fourth-grade students in America.

“We place a great deal of emphasis on reading,” Pollock said. “It’s the linchpin to all other academic subjects.”

Other districts throughout Ventura County with high reading scores also emphasized the importance of incentive programs. Reading resource teachers who work individually with students are also invaluable, they said.

At the Ventura Unified School District, schools that scored extremely well in reading--such as Mound, Poinsettia and Loma Vista elementary schools--are magnet schools that draw talented students from throughout the district.

The fourth-graders at those schools scored at the 84, 74 and 72 percentiles, respectively.

The majority of students in those schools come from middle- to upper-income homes where English is the primary language, according to Supt. Joseph Spirito. In general, such students have parents who are active in their education.

Students from lower-income homes, on the other hand, tend to have two working parents who have little time to attend parent meetings and help with homework, he said.

While acknowledging that students who speak English fluently have an advantage when taking tests written in English, Spirito believed other factors may have been behind his district’s high test scores.

He outlined several ways Ventura teachers help students of all backgrounds excel in test taking:

* Give students tests in small groups and make sure they are in a quiet environment.

* Encourage them to approach a test with a positive attitude and a full stomach.

* Teach them the material that is expected to be on the test. For example, the reading portion of the Stanford 9 exam tested students on their ability to follow a recipe and directions to operate a VCR.

Some teachers were not prepared for such questions and did not instruct their children in those areas, Spirito said.

“My prediction is that some schools who didn’t score as well probably didn’t follow some of these guidelines,” Spirito said.

Ken Moffit , interim superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District, also stressed parental participation in a student’s success. Such involvement is mandatory at Hollow Hills Elementary School, where fourth grade students scored in the 79 percentile in reading.

“We have parents fighting to get their kids into Hollow Hills,” said Caesar Jullian , a Simi school board member. “Parents are more involved, and that’s a big part of it.”

Such a policy is more difficult to enforce at the district’s Berylwood Elementary School, where many students come from lower-income families where both parents work, he said. Fourth graders at that school scored in the 39 percentile in reading.

Jane Kampbell of the Fillmore Unified School District knows this to be true.

In Fillmore, fourth-graders scored in the 18 percentile in reading at Piru Elementary School and 19 at San Cayetano Elementary School. In many schools in the district, the majority of students are limited-English speakers.

But Kampbell, the district’s assistant superintendent, wants to make one thing clear.

“Just because we have a high number of [Limited English Proficiency] students, I don’t want to make a bunch of excuses,” she said. “We need to go back to the tests and find out where the shortfalls were . . . OK, this happened. We’ve been given this information now let’s move on and improve.”

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