What the Scores Tell Us

Orange County public school students once again fared better on the Stanford 9 exam in every grade than their peers statewide, although several other large counties in the state posted better scores.

Since the start of the standardized testing in California in 1998, the county’s schools typically have done better than the statewide average, even though almost a third of Orange County students who take the test do not speak English fluently. That compares with 24% statewide.

But while the county outscored all its neighboring counties, it did not emerge as a star statewide. Instead, it ranked 19th among the state’s 58 counties, with lower scores than those in several populous counties with similar demographics. Students in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Contra Costa counties, all in the Bay Area, scored higher, according to composite rankings compiled by The Times, as did Ventura County in Southern California.

Neighboring Los Angeles County ranked 50th, San Bernardino ranked 46th and Riverside 43rd.

Orange County officials expressed happiness with local schools’ scores.

“We’re thrilled that the trends are in the right direction,” said William Habermehl, associate superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. “We’re not looking for huge gains--that would be like the stock market, up one day then down the next. We would rather be consistent.”

Irvine and Laguna Beach Unified were the county’s highest-scoring districts overall, ranking 46th and 47th among the state’s 1,045 school systems that reported test scores. About 78% of students in both districts scored at or above the national average.

“Obviously we’re very pleased,” said Dean Waldfogel, deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction in Irvine. “But lots of things concern us about being first with the Stanford 9.”

Waldfogel sounded a warning over the stress placed on Stanford 9 performance. Focusing on the test might ultimately lead to an emphasis in the classroom on less sophisticated and complex types of learning, Waldfogel said.

“I think a lot of us are very, very concerned about the limited sphere on which we have begun to focus our instruction,” he said. “Particularly for students that are headed for an SAT test or a four-year university, we begin to do them quite a disservice if we limit what they’re taught to those things that are tested--simply so we can look better on the test.”

Santa Ana was the lowest-scoring district in the county, with a lower composite score than the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District, according to The Times computer analysis. Officials there were unavailable for comment. But Santa Ana scores improved this year, even though 60% of its students are not fluent in English.

Countywide, an area of concern for educators is high school reading.

For the second year in a row, reading scores fell sharply at the high school level. Only 42% of ninth- and 11th-graders reached the national mean, along with 40% of sophomores. “The problem we see now is that kids in the high schools don’t have that same strong foundation in reading that kids are getting in the elementary grades,” Habermehl said. The stronger scores at the elementary grades are largely due to a reduction in class sizes and other reforms that have not yet reached most high schools, he said. All of the county’s school districts, however, are considering a variety of ways to improve reading comprehension.

Some districts are adding reading specialists, others are deciding whether to begin teaching reading, in addition to English literature, at the high school level.

O.C.’s Best Results in Math

It is only a matter of time, however, until the steady gains position the county near the top of test takers, Department of Education Supt. John Dean said. “Once the standards and the curriculum and the materials and the test are all aligned, if we’re not the best in the state we’ll be darned close.”

Still, the scores from Orange County showed that in most cases, a majority of the county’s students are scoring at or above the national average. For example, 55% of second-graders reached the national average for reading, while statewide only 49% did so. On the language test, 59% of fifth-graders achieved the national mean while 50% did so statewide.

The county’s best results were in math.

Elementary students showed the strongest scores, with 63% of county third-graders scoring at or above the mean, compared with 56% of third-graders statewide.

Older students did almost as well, with 57% of 10th- and 11th-graders in the county meeting the national average and 61% of ninth-graders doing so.

(Beginning with this year’s data, The Times is reporting the percentage of students scoring at or above the 50th percentile, which is the national average. In the past, the newspaper reported the “percentile rank,” which compared the test results with those of students in the same grade across the country. The percentage at or above the 50th percentile is considered by most education experts to be the best statistical measure of progress at a school over time.)

This year, about 4.3 million public school children in grades two through 11 took the Stanford 9. The test is supposed to measure competence in basic skills, such as reading, math, language, science and social science and spelling, depending on the grade level. Student scores are ranked against those from a national pool of test takers.

Individual Orange County school districts began receiving their Stanford 9 test results in April.

Throughout the county, results for the 2000 school year show gains in almost every subject and grade level tested. The most significant improvements occurred in the elementary grades, where most of the state’s educational reforms, such as class-size reduction, have taken place.

Since its introduction, the Stanford 9 has resulted in major changes in California public schools. As the sole component for now of a statewide ranking system for schools, it has become a high-stakes exam.

Schools that achieve their state-determined growth targets for test scores are eligible for cash rewards while those falling short could face penalties that, at worst, could culminate in a state takeover of the district.

In classrooms throughout the county, teachers spent much of the previous school year teaching children how to take the test, training them to recognize the kinds of questions that are asked and trying to minimize students’ anxiety.

For example, for the past two years, Capistrano Unified School District, Santa Ana Unified School District, Garden Grove Unified School District and a several others have bolstered their teaching of reading and math, particularly at the elementary level and increased teacher training and mentoring efforts.

Pressure Creates Problems

The pressure to produce high scores on the standardized test has led to its own controversies.

Orange Unified School District learned in April that an eighth-grade mathematics teacher had distributed work sheets with questions lifted from the eighth-grade mathematics section of the Stanford 9. The district would not say in what way, if any, the teacher was disciplined, but the scores of inappropriately prepared students are not included in the district’s scores.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, 13 teachers at Banning High School in Wilmington were disciplined for showing students test questions, and eight teachers in Woodland, outside Sacramento, were also under investigation earlier in the year for similar violations.

But most efforts to improve scores involved simple efforts to expand students’ reading, language and math skills.

At schools where reading or math scores were low the previous year, school districts instituted reading clubs, mentoring and tutoring programs and weekend enrichment sessions, hoping to see improvement this year.

Spanish-speaking students who have been in the U.S. for less than one year were given the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education, Second Edition (SABE/2) instead of the Stanford 9, and districts also had the option of administering the SABE/2 to English-language learners enrolled for more than 12 months.

A new set of scores, separating those of limited English speakers from other students’, will be released in mid-August.

*

For expanded coverage of the Stanford 9 test results, go to https://www.latimes.com/schoolscores.