Some Good News in the Numbers

Some numbers are actually going in the right direction in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It’s only the beginning of a very long and difficult haul, but the substantial elementary-grade increases reported this week in Stanford 9 test scores in both reading and math are what’s needed to keep reforms moving.

Primary grades, where the district has made its most intense efforts at reform, showed the greatest improvement on the standardized tests. Some of the increases were triple last year’s overall gains of two points on average. However, to put the progress in context, the district has not yet hit the 50th percentile, the national average, in any grade or subject. The best performance in reading was by second-graders, who went from the 27th to the 33rd percentile. In math, it was third-graders, who jumped from 35 to 42.

Eighth-grade students also did demonstrably better than last year. That growth may have resulted from the district’s new ban on social promotion, which targets the second and eighth grades. Students who struggled in either grade were given remedial instruction after school and on weekends; that extra work may have boosted test scores.

School board members credit intense concentration on primary reading instruction for the improved test results in the early grades. The district’s focus on research-based reading instruction started under then-Supt. Ruben Zacarias and took on a missionary-like zeal during the short tenure of interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines.

Teachers surely deserve much of the credit, though district officials won’t have school-by-school and class-by-class results that allow fine analysis until July 17. Among the questions that will need answers: If a certain school made great strides, had a strong principal taken over the school? Did teachers benefit from professional development tied specifically to the new state standards? Did the school choose a new curriculum? Did the state’s class-size reduction program make a difference? Did attendance go up? Those data are needed to determine what teachers are doing in classrooms where students are succeeding.

High school scores changed little, a disappointment, but it might have been predicted given the focus on primary grades. The district, with extra money pouring in from the state, can now afford to start putting more reform effort into higher grades.

The elementary-grade test results deserve a cheer. Whatever is working best, as determined by the more detailed analysis, should be applied over and over. Teachers and principals who are making solid gains should be rewarded. But there is far to go and too much failure remains. There can be no letup in accountability or any other reform.