It Looks Like Up

Reading and math scores are up for the third year in a row for California’s youngest students. The steady progress nudges more elementary school children to above average on the Stanford 9, a standardized basic skills test required by the state, but the overall results are still woefully inadequate. Catching up with the rest of the nation will require double-digit jumps in test scores, like the stunning gain of 20 percentile points made in reading by second-grade students at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles. They scored at the 56th percentile, in the top half of all test-takers.

California’s emphasis on early reading instruction and smaller classes continues to make a difference in the primary grades. Second-graders posted the state’s top score in reading, with the majority scoring at or above the 50th percentile. Still--and we can’t emphasize this enough--as good as this progress is, it’s all relative. Such is the state of public school education in California and particularly in the Los Angeles Unified School District: We’re all reduced to cheering for scores that bring our students up to barely average.

Additional analysis will determine whether poor readers improved or worsened while good readers got better. Sustained progress will require all readers, especially those in the lowest rankings, to improve by the end of the fourth grade, a point where students are expected to comprehend more complex information.

Math scores continue to outpace those of reading. Among California students, third-graders did best in math on the Stanford 9. Most students scored at or above the national average. And Los Angeles third-graders came close, thanks to an increase of seven percentile points in math scores.

Unfortunately, high school reading scores remain scandalously low. In the Los Angeles district, these students scored in the bottom third of test-takers, or worse. Poor reading instruction, inadequate bilingual education, a textbook shortage and education fads failed many of them during their early school years. They need remedial reading instruction at a time when they should be analyzing Shakespeare. They also need math teachers who are qualified to teach the subject. The disappointing scores in upper grades challenge the state and the school districts to pay as much attention to older students as to children just learning to read.

The continuing poor performance of high school students makes the case for emergency measures to ensure they are prepared to graduate. Taxpayers can pay now or we can pay later when community and state colleges--and eventually employers--have to pick up the bill for remedial education.

Do the scores on the Stanford 9 indicate improvement on some fronts? Yes, and that’s good news. But an honest assessment of California’s progress in the classroom might be more along the lines of the Richard Farina book title, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.”