Huntington Schools Again Score High

For the second year running, Huntington Beach elementary and middle schools made a strong showing on California’s standardized test, scoring generally above the national average.

According to Stanford 9 test results released Monday, Huntington Beach City School District average districtwide scores ranged from a low of the 51st percentile in eighth-grade spelling to a high of the 73rd percentile in seventh-grade language skills.

The results wavered a few points up or down from last year’s scores, but not by much.

“You always open these with a bit of dread and fear,” Gary Rutherford, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, said about the results. “But we are very pleased. The scores are quite consistent. I don’t see any glaring messages to us.”

The school system administered the Stanford 9 exam this spring to 4,958 pupils in grades 2 through 8, almost 7% of whom are not native English speakers. The exam tests elementary and middle school students on reading, language, spelling and math.

Huntington Beach is the fifth Orange County school district to release the results. The other districts are expected to do so by the end of the month.

Scores will soon be used to help rank California public schools and determine which students advance to the next grade level and which must repeat a year.

While the reading portion of the test has tripped up many California students--about a quarter of whom are learning English as a second language--Huntington Beach fared well in reading comprehension.

Eight of Huntington Beach’s nine schools achieved reading scores mainly in the 60th and 70th percentiles.

By definition, the 50th percentile is the national norm, with half the students in a nationally selected group scoring higher and half scoring lower.

At Joseph R. Perry Elementary--where almost a quarter of the test-takers were still learning English--the students tested lower in reading, between the 42nd and 51st percentiles.

“Perry is our school with the most demographic challenges--about 300 students there qualify for free or reduced lunches--yet they are performing at the national average or above in most areas,” Rutherford said. “That’s good to see.”

On a district level, the weakest scores came in spelling, where results were a little higher than the national norm.

As a result of the spelling scores, the school district has begun discouraging what some call “inventive” spelling and is beginning to focus on exercises in which students hunt down spelling and usage errors in assigned reading, Rutherford said.

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Huntington Beach Test Results

Overall, students in Huntington Beach elementary and middle schools scored above the national norm in all categories of the Stanford 9 standardized test this spring. It was the second consecutive year every grade level, on a district basis, scored above the norms. The following percentile listings show how the scores ranked against a nationally selected group. A score in the 50th percentile, for example, is exactly at the national midpoint.

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Reading Math Language Spelling School Grade 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 Districtwide 2 58 58 64 67 65 64 54 55 3 61 64 67 70 62 67 53 58 4 66 67 65 64 69 63 61 59 5 64 65 63 66 69 68 62 63 6 63 65 71 71 66 70 57 59 7 63 65 72 70 72 73 60 60 8 64 66 69 69 70 72 52 51 Dwyer 6 56 62 63 68 58 62 51 54 Middle 7 53 60 63 61 61 66 51 54 8 57 60 59 61 63 65 47 47 Eader 2 59 60 59 64 66 64 56 57 Elementary 3 61 66 63 68 62 68 52 64 4 71 71 68 67 67 69 63 67 5 62 65 52 65 63 67 55 56 Hawes 2 67 67 79 79 79 75 63 67 Elementary 3 74 72 75 83 77 79 70 74 4 74 75 75 77 77 66 70 71 5 67 72 72 76 75 76 67 65 Kettler 2 53 60 59 72 63 64 48 53 Elementary 3 60 58 65 63 60 58 50 53 4 64 64 62 57 67 66 59 50 5 62 62 64 59 65 68 56 60 Moffett 2 62 64 77 76 74 72 56 56 Elementary 3 67 71 78 80 67 77 55 61 4 61 66 66 68 67 69 57 62 5 63 61 67 62 81 71 58 58 Perry 2 47 42 49 51 45 51 41 48 Elementary 3 37 45 39 50 43 52 40 48 4 39 44 35 33 51 47 37 37 5 41 51 44 42 45 50 38 41 Peterson 2 64 54 63 62 66 56 63 54 Elementary 3 73 66 72 78 71 70 67 59 4 63 72 73 73 61 70 50 64 5 79 69 81 69 76 66 71 62 Smith 2 58 67 67 71 66 71 53 57 Elementary 3 65 68 66 67 66 66 61 55 4 71 72 70 71 75 73 66 63 5 71 71 66 77 72 77 59 65 Sowers 6 69 67 77 74 73 76 62 64 Middle 7 70 69 77 77 79 79 67 65 8 70 70 77 74 75 77 57 54

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Source: Huntington Beach City School District