Schools Begin to Get State Test Results

The much-anticipated results of a new statewide test have begun trickling in, with the scores for a handful of Orange County districts showing their students scoring at or above the national average.

At least 10 of Orange County’s 27 school districts have received results from the publisher of the standardized test of basic skills known as the Stanford 9, said Dianne Camacho, assessment coordinator for the Orange County Department of Education. Of those, five districts in Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Fullerton, Cypress and Laguna Beach disclosed partial results Wednesday.

Statewide results are not expected to be made public until June 30, but more than 200 districts have received scores so far. The Stanford 9 is the first statewide examination of student performance since 1994.

The test, published by Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, was given this spring to students throughout California in second to 11th grades. It measures skills in reading vocabulary and comprehension; mathematics problem solving and procedures; language mechanics and expression; spelling; and, in higher grades, reading, language, math, science and social science.

Batches of test scores are being sent to individual school districts roughly in the order in which they administered the test. Schools were allowed to give it during a two-month period from mid-March to mid-May. Many districts are still waiting for their scores.

The data made public Wednesday showed these districtwide trends:

* Cypress Elementary School District, with 4,800 students from kindergarten through sixth grade, scored above the 50th percentile across the board and, in many grades, above the 60th percentile. The same was true of Laguna Beach Unified School District, which also reached in several grades past the 70th percentile.

* Fountain Valley School District, with 6,100 students in grades K-8, scored above the 60th percentile in all grades in reading, math and language. In spelling, its lowest ranking was in the 53rd percentile for its eighth-graders.

* Huntington Beach City School District, with 6,400 students in grades K-8, ranked consistently above the 60th percentile in most subjects.

* Fullerton Joint Union High School District, with 14,300 students in grades nine through 12, ranked at or near the 60th percentile in mathematics but hovered near the 40th percentile in reading.

“It’s a mixed bag,” said Kenneth L. Stichter, assistant superintendent at Fullerton. “There’s some good news and not-so-good news. There were a couple of areas in which we were very pleased, especially ninth-grade math.”

Percentiles rank students and schools against a nationally selected group. Those at the 50th percentile, for example, scored higher than one-half of the pool and lower than the other half.

Educators were generally cautious about interpreting the results, saying a multitude of factors outside the classroom could drive scores up or down, including such variables as poverty and the number of students who are not fluent in English. They also confessed to some nervousness about how the public will react when scores from one district are compared with those of another.

“There’s anxiety because it’s the first time we’ve ever given the test, and no one wants to look bad,” said Barbara Callard, interim superintendent of the 2,400-student Laguna Beach Unified School District.

The issue of perceptions is so touchy that Huntington Beach Union High School District, which has had the data for several days, declined to release any of it until parents receive a letter, mailed Wednesday, detailing their students’ test scores.

“We’re choosing this timing out of respect to parents and the community,” said Susan Roper, superintendent of the 14,000-student district. “It’s a matter of courtesy.”

Educators said the first year’s results will be more useful when compared with scores in ensuing years. The key point of testing, said William Habermehl, associate superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education, should be to identify positive or negative trends over time.

Such analysis is exactly what California has been missing for several years.

The last statewide test, known as the California Learning Assessment System, or CLAS, was killed in 1994 after it was widely attacked as subjective and full of technical flaws. The CLAS tests also did not provide comparisons with students nationwide. Afterward, school districts were free to set their own testing policy. Many chose to use exams from competing publishers, which yielded results that were difficult or impossible to compare.

Last year, the state enacted a law calling for a single test in English to be given by all schools. Gov. Pete Wilson said it was a critical step to ensure that California was getting its money’s worth from a huge education budget that includes such expensive new initiatives as reducing the student-teacher ratio from kindergarten through third grade.

But many educators, while applauding the campaign for accountability, protested the new mandate. They complained that the material covered in the Stanford 9 in some instances did not match what California schoolchildren had been taught that year. They also said that hundreds of thousands of students with limited English skills would be put at a disadvantage by being forced to answer questions they barely understand.

The language issue is especially acute in cities such as Los Angeles and Santa Ana, which have huge populations of limited- or non-English-speaking students. In San Francisco, school administrators declined to give the test to thousands of such students. After the state filed suit, a San Francisco Superior Court judge recently ruled in favor of the district.

Because of how the state’s testing law is written, the state also has relatively little control over many aspects of how Harcourt Brace administers the test. The company does not have a single contract with the state, but individual ones with the state’s 1,000 school districts.

Under the state’s testing law, which was signed only last fall by Wilson, the company must make statewide results available for posting on the Internet by June 30. Parents must receive the scores for their students within 20 working days after that.

Times staff writers Richard Lee Colvin and Tini Tran contributed to this report.

* THE SCORES: A rundown of partial results from five O.C. districts. B3

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New School Benchmarks

Some Orange County school administrators have begun receiving results from the Stanford 9 test of basic skills, the first statewide exam in California public schools since 1994. Here are partial results from five school districts, given as percentiles. Students were tested this spring in second to 11th grades.

Editor’s Note: The percentile figures show how student scores ranked, on average, against a nationally selected group, in spelling and cumulative reading, language and math. High school students were also tested in reading, language, math, science and social studies. Those who score at the 50th percentile, for example, ranked higher than half the comparison group and lower than the other half.

The Laguna Beach and Cypress districts did not release data for individual schools.

Cypress

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Grade Read Lang. Spell Math District Totals 2 67 70 68 67 3 57 63 58 65 4 56 62 57 59 5 58 66 57 65 6 64 67 60 72

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Fountain Valley

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Courreges 2 73 80 74 81 3 73 82 72 77 4 78 80 79 76 5 74 81 70 79

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Cox 2 62 77 58 77 3 59 66 61 71 4 60 65 62 63 5 61 70 64 68

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Fulton 6 70 76 67 80 7 67 77 69 79 8 72 79 58 80

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Gisler 2 58 60 63 59 3 54 60 56 64 4 65 70 65 82 5 66 66 57 65

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Masuda 6 60 65 59 68 7 66 73 63 73 8 65 71 54 70

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Moiola 2 65 63 56 63 3 69 77 64 83 4 67 76 75 68 5 61 70 65 65 6 61 69 56 80 7 65 79 67 67 8 60 73 54 60

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Newland 2 72 83 70 82 3 63 67 53 64 4 64 61 57 56 5 56 59 48 56

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Oka 2 51 64 46 60 3 52 58 42 57 4 53 64 50 53 5 51 63 58 57

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Plavan 2 49 59 49 75 3 71 76 65 80 4 55 63 57 58 5 67 72 66 72

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Talbert 6 57 66 62 64 7 56 59 57 64 8 53 58 45 59

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Tamura 2 55 61 52 53 3 59 58 58 60 4 69 72 65 69 5 56 57 59 59

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District Total Grade Read Lang. Spell Math 2 61 70 59 70 3 62 68 59 70 4 65 70 65 67 5 62 68 61 66 6 62 69 62 71 7 64 71 63 72 8 64 70 53 70

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Fullerton Joint Union High

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social Buena Park 9 22 36 39 35 33 10 20 28 39 37 28 11 24 34 37 32 47

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social Fullerton 9 30 44 47 41 41 10 27 35 43 37 35 11 33 43 42 38 50

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social La Habra 9 38 56 56 48 46 10 33 42 51 49 37 11 36 44 48 43 57

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social La Vista 10 8 10 16 20 14 11 21 23 19 23 22

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social Sonora 9 41 54 58 50 52 10 38 42 53 51 41 11 39 49 48 48 56

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social Sunny Hills 9 54 72 77 59 62 10 54 65 78 66 60 11 59 71 81 67 76

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School Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social Troy 9 64 77 83 69 72 10 63 69 81 74 68 11 66 71 80 72 80

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District Total Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social 9 42 58 62 51 52 10 39 48 59 54 46 11 43 52 57 50 61

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Huntington Beach City

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Dwyer 6 56 58 51 63 7 53 61 51 63 8 57 63 47 59

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Eader 2 59 66 56 59 3 61 62 52 63 4 71 67 63 68 5 62 63 55 52

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Hawes 2 67 79 63 79 3 74 77 70 75 4 74 77 70 75 5 67 75 67 72

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Kettler 2 53 63 48 59 3 60 60 50 65 4 64 67 59 62 5 62 65 56 64

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Moffett 2 62 74 56 77 3 67 67 55 78 4 61 67 57 66 5 63 81 58 67

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Perry 2 47 45 41 49 3 37 43 40 39 4 39 51 37 35 5 41 45 38 44

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Peterson 2 64 66 63 63 3 73 71 67 72 4 63 61 50 73 5 79 76 71 81

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Smith 2 58 66 53 67 3 65 66 61 66 4 71 75 66 70 5 71 72 59 66

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School Grade Read Lang. Spell Math Sowers 6 69 73 62 77 7 70 79 67 77 8 70 75 57 77

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District Total Grade Read Lang. Spell Math 2 58 65 54 64 3 61 62 53 67 4 66 69 61 65 5 64 69 62 63 6 63 66 57 71 7 63 72 60 72 8 64 70 52 69

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Laguna Beach Unified

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District Total (2-8) Grade Read Lang. Spell Math 2 70 71 56 73 3 69 68 55 79 4 70 63 63 67 5 72 69 63 77 6 68 55 60 75 7 72 71 65 72 8 73 70 53 71

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District Total Grade Read Lang. Math Science Social 9 68 72 77 72 72 10 62 62 61 69 61 11 68 71 71 71 82

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Scores expressed in national percentiles.

Source: Individual school districts