Tustin Test Scores Bring Tears of Joy

When Principal Karla Wells received Lambert Elementary School’s Stanford 9 test results Friday afternoon, she called the staff together--and teachers, principal and the school custodian all began to cry.

Out of 100 possible points, the Tustin school’s scores hovered in the 20th, 30th and 40th percentiles and peaked at 51% in fourth-grade language skills--a modest achievement in many situations but a huge one on a campus where 99.2% of the students speak limited English and 100% qualify for federally funded free lunches.

The results were greeted with tears of joy.

“We just couldn’t be more excited,” a jubilant Wells said. “The staff here really goes way beyond the call of duty to make sure the kids learn. Everything we do is all from the heart, and now we feel like, oh, my gosh, it’s really starting to work. The kids are really understanding.”

Lambert’s gains were mirrored throughout the Tustin Unified School District, which released solidly improved standardized test results Friday, with scores rising in almost every category.

Scores in the lower grades showed the most improvement, rising by an average of 8 percentile points in grades two through nine at every school in the district, in all subjects tested.

In the higher grades, scores improved 3.6 percentile points overall.

Test scores are measured against those of a national pool of test-takers. The 50th percentile is the national median, with half that pool scoring lower and half scoring higher.

At Peter Canyon Elementary School, where students typically see strong results on standardized tests, scores jumped by double digits at the third-, fourth- and fifth-grade levels. In the fifth grade, language scores rose to the 82nd percentile from the 69th; math scores to the 88th from the 65th; and spelling to the 72nd from the 57th.

At district headquarters, officials attributed the gains to the intense efforts of teachers and parents.

“We really involved parents and communicated with them how their children were doing relative to the grade standards,” said Regina Kane, director of research and program evaluation. “We had goal-setting conferences for all children in grades two through five and met again in the spring with those parents to tell them how their children were doing.”

After receiving last year’s Stanford 9 scores and analyzing Tustin’s in-house standardized test, the district targeted its instruction at areas in need of the most improvement: reading, writing and arithmetic.

In particular, Cain credited Lambert’s 2-year-old Saturday School with playing a role in its higher scores. About 150 students attend Saturday School, where they study reading and writing, English-language development and math.

“I think the Saturday School has made a huge difference, but also all my teachers volunteer to work extra hours after school so our kids just have more actual time at school,” Wells said.

Although the school had hoped to boost its test scores, the teachers’ main goal was to instill a love of reading and math in the students, the principal said. To that end, the students read more than 2 million pages over the course of the year and received a $5,000 Governor’s Award for their effort.

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Elementary & Middle Schools

Tustin Unified School District showed gains over last year in almost every category. The following list shows Stanford 9 percentile scores ranked on average against a nationally selected group. A score in the 99th percentile, for example, is equal to or higher than all but 1% of the comparison group’s.

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Reading Math Language Spelling School Grade 1999 2000 1999 2000 1999 2000 1999 2000 Districtwide 2 49 58 60 70 56 65 51 59 3 51 57 63 70 58 62 52 59 4 51 58 54 64 57 64 49 56 5 46 56 52 65 55 63 48 55 6 48 58 54 65 51 63 49 60 7 47 58 51 57 56 66 50 58 8 49 54 51 53 54 59 41 47 Arroyo 2 79 82 90 91 84 90 71 76 3 76 80 81 86 76 77 66 67 4 81 85 79 85 75 80 72 75 5 80 80 80 82 84 85 70 73 Benson 2 61 68 64 70 69 73 66 67 3 77 74 81 83 80 76 73 66 4 71 73 63 70 73 72 51 66 5 58 70 66 80 61 78 54 55 Beswick 2 30 38 44 45 35 39 38 44 3 26 38 42 54 38 44 31 50 4 23 19 31 29 37 40 25 27 5 24 30 34 42 35 33 30 39 Estock 2 47 47 57 68 56 64 50 58 3 38 45 49 61 50 57 54 59 4 38 46 39 48 49 50 37 49 5 34 44 38 54 47 53 36 45 Guin Foss 2 65 73 85 93 67 81 64 69 3 58 70 69 86 76 78 55 71 4 62 58 65 64 62 61 51 58 5 56 68 64 71 63 69 54 57 Heideman 2 26 40 35 50 34 45 32 43 3 29 30 37 44 37 35 38 43 4 21 32 27 38 29 36 27 34 5 23 29 30 40 39 30 34 32 Lambert 2 15 27 28 43 14 32 20 30 3 16 22 35 44 29 29 26 28 4 18 31 28 45 36 51 26 32 5 13 24 21 32 32 46 24 31 Loma Vista 2 60 73 65 80 65 81 54 66 3 62 67 74 80 69 71 53 64 4 69 70 64 77 66 73 64 63 5 70 67 70 77 71 75 63 62 Nelson 2 57 62 69 78 69 66 62 68 3 58 62 70 76 63 66 58 67 4 61 67 60 75 60 72 58 63 5 52 63 60 71 55 84 58 66 Peters Canyon 2 71 74 79 81 79 79 70 73 3 76 82 80 89 77 84 67 81 4 70 80 78 85 78 79 71 81 5 60 76 65 88 69 82 57 72 Thorman 2 31 37 42 44 44 40 36 36 3 20 31 37 45 29 36 28 43 4 22 29 35 39 34 37 26 26 5 24 26 31 36 33 35 30 35 Tustin 2 71 84 80 87 78 87 69 80 Memorial 3 76 83 83 86 78 84 73 74 4 80 78 81 82 85 82 80 79 5 76 84 80 86 76 85 71 76 Tustin Ranch 2 61 71 67 82 67 78 66 73 3 71 71 79 78 76 77 68 72 4 62 79 66 82 64 79 61 80 5 62 65 63 78 66 69 62 70 Veeh 2 47 45 43 50 44 52 47 54 3 43 45 50 50 45 50 46 52 4 44 43 45 51 51 53 44 40 5 32 44 32 47 44 51 39 43 Columbus 6 37 44 42 52 41 55 41 52 Tustin Middle 7 31 51 35 51 38 60 36 57 8 35 43 37 40 38 49 28 42 Currie Middle 6 33 39 38 46 40 39 36 39 7 36 35 41 37 45 43 41 38 8 36 35 34 37 41 43 30 38 Hewes Middle 6 65 80 72 83 64 81 63 76 7 69 76 72 74 77 82 69 71 8 68 73 73 74 74 77 57 61 Pioneer Middle 6 74 84 78 76 no ’99 7 79 81 87 80 scores given 8 71 72 75 58 Utt Middle 6 51 50 58 55 57 60 53 54 7 49 54 50 46 59 65 51 54 8 53 49 52 41 59 53 48 42

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Source: Tustin Unified School District

Secondary Schools

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Reading Math Language Science School Grade 1999 2000 1999 2000 1999 2000 1999 2000 Districtwide 9 41 47 57 61 56 61 50 54 10 36 41 50 54 42 48 50 53 11 43 43 56 54 53 52 52 50 Foothill 9 47 57 64 67 60 69 54 61 10 41 51 57 61 46 60 56 82 11 54 52 68 64 62 63 66 63 Tustin 9 36 38 51 55 54 52 46 46 10 33 34 46 50 42 40 46 47 11 35 39 48 51 46 48 41 43

Social science School 1999 2000 Districtwide 50 55 44 43 63 58 Foothill 52 57 48 49 73 65 Tustin 48 53 41 40 54 57

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Source: Tustin Unified School District