Capistrano Scored With Its CORE Test, Officials Say

While educators complain of a wide range of problems with the Stanford 9 test, the Capistrano Unified School District has quietly kept up with its own testing system, one that administrators there say has none of the weak points of the statewide standardized test.

The district administers the Capistrano Objective for Reading Excellence, or CORE, exam to grades two through eight once in the fall and once in the spring.

“The CORE test went along smoothly--there were no glitches and no problems, no delays and mistakes,” said Jeff Bristow, director of testing and evaluation for the district.

“Out of 30,000 parents, we really didn’t have any complaints.”

By contrast, widespread testing errors by the Stanford exam publisher, Harcourt Educational Measurement, twice delayed the state’s release of test scores for many school districts statewide. They were due to be made public by June 30 but were released Thursday.

First the publisher mixed together the scores of English learners of varying abilities, which should have been kept separate.

That mistake inflated the reported results for students learning English and lowered those for fluent English speakers.

Then state Department of Education officials announced that the possible miscalculation of test scores for 44 school districts, including Capistrano and Santa Ana, would further delay the release of scores for another week.

Bad experiences with the Stanford 9 “made me glad we didn’t drop the CORE test,” Capistrano Supt. James A. Fleming said. “We were thinking about that, because keeping it costs $200,000.”

Working with Northwest Evaluation Associates, a test-development company, Capistrano developed the CORE test in 1994-95 after the demise of the statewide California Learning Assessment System.

At that time the state offered incentive money to school districts to create a standardized test on their own. Ultimately the state approved 55 such exams.

Some parents say the CORE results offer more specific measures of their children’s performance than the Stanford 9.

Craig and Barbara Collins of Dana Point said CORE test results reassured them that their son Christopher, a third-grader at Malcolm Elementary, was progressing well in his reading and spelling.

“We were concerned that his reading scores were not going to be very good, but then when we got his test scores, he’s at or above average in everything,” Craig Collins said.

“Also, because the CORE is broken down into small areas like comprehension and phonics, it’s more meaningful” than the Stanford test, “which just comes back with results in a few major categories.”

Not everyone appreciates the CORE test.

One parent who asked not to be named said the test had failed time and again to accurately peg her very bright son’s abilities.

He scored so far above his third-grade level that the district gave him a sixth-grade test, she said. That one proved too difficult, so officials sought to test him again.

“I looked at the teacher and said, ‘Forget it.’ He hates to be pulled out of class, and I think it’s wasted time.

“I just think the CORE test is testing meaningless things--I have a kid that it just doesn’t fit,” she said.

Often there is little difference in how students score on the Stanford 9 and the CORE test.

If Capistrano second-graders do well on the reading portion of one test, they are likely to have a similar score on the other.

“In general, what we’ve seen is a rise in scores,” Bristow said. As with the Stanford 9, he added, second- and third-graders are showing the greatest improvement--consistent with instructional changes and class-size reduction.

As students move from elementary to middle school in the fall, CORE results drop a little and then recover by spring.

Although state education officials do not review CORE results, they agree with district officials that the exam is useful--in some ways more than the Stanford 9.

Off-the-shelf publisher’s tests are created to be as marketable in as many places as possible--which necessarily means they cannot test the specifics of one district’s or state’s chosen curriculum, said Gerry Shelton, an administrator in the California testing program.

For example, fourth-grade history lessons in California center on early California life, including establishment of the missions and the Gold Rush. No national standardized test will delve into the specifics of those lessons, he said.

“Keep in the back of the mind how Capo developed this--it was custom-made to the district,” Shelton said.

Should district officials “rely solely on test scores that test nothing on their fourth-grade curriculum to tell them exactly where they are?” Shelton asked.

In most cases when evaluating student performance, the Capistrano district relies on CORE, not the Stanford 9.