SAT Results

Monroe High School English teacher Jeff Marciano laments that the SAT results don’t reflect what is happening at his school (“Do SAT Scores Reflect Achievement?” Aug. 30). Unfortunately, he’s correct, except that the miserable performance of many Los Angeles Unified School District students on the SAT excludes the large majority of students who are doing much worse. Overall student performance, measured well by the Stanford 9 test, is truly abysmal.

In my 14 years teaching, standardized test scores have correlated well with student knowledge and performance. The problem with standardized testing is that it’s not connected with student, teacher, parent and administrator accountability. Standardized testing should be used as an external mechanism to motivate students to study hard and learn academic content. Accountability for the rest of us will spring from this simple proposition.

Instead, we are offered the same lame excuses enunciated by Marciano. Until we expect and demand more, with increased accountability for all and consequences for those not achieving, then nothing will improve.

Unfortunately, this runs counter to the LAUSD culture of victimology that permeates the district at every level.

DAN HART, La Crescenta