Three Districts Post Gains in Test Scores

Saddleback Valley Unified School District improved on already impressive Stanford 9 scores, gaining five to six percentile points in each subject area at the elementary level, three to four at the intermediate level and one percentile in the high school grades.

Average district scores ranged from a low of the 54th percentile to the 81st percentile, with the highest test scores coming from Rancho Canada Elementary School, whose sixth-graders scored in the 91st percentile for math.

Saddleback Supt. Peter Hartman said he was pleased with the results but that the district is taking measures to ensure that students take the test more seriously. Currently, it does not appear on their transcripts.

The school board recently voted to keep back any junior who scored below the 33rd percentile in any of the test’s six subjects, he said, starting next year. District officials also are mulling whether to put students’ 11th-grade test scores on their high school transcripts or stamp them on their diplomas.

The district is pushing students to try harder on the standardized test.

“I talk to students who tell me their friends take the test as if it’s a game,” Hartman said. “So we’ve got to somehow let the students know they must take this test seriously.”

At only one school in the district, Silverado Continuation High School, did test scores dip below 33%. Continuation-school students typically have not flourished at other high schools for academic or disciplinary reasons.

Scores at all other schools either met or far exceeded the national average.

The Stanford 9 exam tests elementary and middle-school students in reading, language, math and spelling. High school students do not take the spelling portion of the test, but are evaluated in science and social science.

Results are given in percentiles, which rank students against a nationally selected group of 250,000 students. The 50th percentile is by definition the national average.

The La Habra City School District overall also saw modest increases, except for the district’s second-graders, whose scores improved significantly.

At El Cerrito Elementary School, reading scores jumped 14 percentile points, from the 27th percentile to the 41st. At Ladera Palma, math scores increased 16 percentile points, from the 44th, below national average, to 60th percentile, significantly above average.

The Magnolia School District, with elementary schools in Anaheim and Stanton, saw modest across-the-board increases in its overall standardized test scores this year. But there were dramatic improvements among students with limited English skills, whose test scores increased by almost 12%.

At Robert M. Pyles Elementary School, where 70% of the students are not fluent in English, students had some of the lowest scores in the district but also made some of the most impressive gains on the test.

Sixth-graders at Pyles, for example, raised their spelling scores 10 percentile points, from 22nd to 32nd. Math scores rose from the 40th percentile to the 53rd. Sixth-graders at Esther L. Walker Elementary School made even more impressive gains, with scores that doubled in almost every category.

The improvement can be attributed to intensive teacher training, said Assistant Supt. Roberta Pantle.

“We had some strong professional development in both reading and mathematics for teachers and we attribute that growth to teacher attention to state standards,” Pantle said.