Test Results Private at Private Schools

Though recent landmark legislation has put more pressure on the nation’s public schools to score well on standardized tests, private schools are largely exempt from this accountability movement.

About 640,000 kindergarten-through-12th-grade students in California--or 10% of the school population--attend private institutions. But most of these 4,200 schools don’t publish their test scores, and they doggedly resist calls from interested parents to do so.

“It’s not that we want to hide them. It’s because they’re grossly misinterpreted by the people,” said Rina Ngo, director of elementary curriculum for the schools operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Some parents say not being able to see scores for all schools makes comparison shopping difficult. But far more parents--even as they demand scores from public schools--seem content to go without such information in the case of private ones. They hold these schools accountable in different ways--by visiting them, for example, and talking to other parents.

“People are buying a pig in a poke,” said Sara Lieber McKinney, a retired Los Angeles public school teacher who would like private campuses to disclose test scores. “Anybody who’s selling something to the public ... should be very open.”

Nearly all private schools do test their students, but differences in the tests and their reporting make it difficult to compare scores. Some private schools use versions of the Stanford 9 tests that are given at California public campuses; others administer an exam that is considered more difficult: the Educational Records Bureau’s Comprehensive Testing Program.

And in cases where comparisons can be made--for example on the SAT for college admission--private-school students consistently outscore those in public systems.

But for Claire Joseph, who is looking at public and private kindergartens for her twins, test scores “don’t measure the things that are most important to me.”

“All you have to do is spend two hours with your child, see him do some math, see him do some English and you’ll see exactly where he’s strongest,” she said.

Roger Weaver, headmaster of Crossroads School in Santa Monica, agreed that campus visits are a good gauge of quality.

“Breathe the air, see what the school culture is about and see what life for a student feels like,” he said. “Look at what the school says it stands for and whether that squares up with what you want for your kid.”

Still, Mindy Danna, who is looking at public and private schools for her 5-year-old daughter, says she would appreciate information that would allow her to make direct comparisons.

“It would be apples and apples instead of apples and oranges,” she said.

Danna decided to move because she was disappointed in the test scores of the public campus in her Park La Brea neighborhood--a snap judgment, she admits. But like many other parents dismayed by public school scores, she may choose to send her daughter to a private school without benefit of the same information.

Private-school educators have generally been able to fend off calls for making scores public by pointing out that they receive no funding from taxpayers. Parents’ tuition checks keep them accountable, they contend.

Policymakers have tended to accept that argument.

“They’re private for a reason, and I’m comfortable with that,” said state Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), author of the legislation that requires standardized testing in California’s public schools.

Last month, when President Bush signed federal legislation requiring annual reading and math tests for children in third through eighth grades, private schools were not included.

Those in private education often argue that to publish private schools’ test scores and compare them with those of public campuses would feed the misperception that raw numbers, rankings and percentiles can predict where a particular child will flourish.

If Crossroads’ Weaver had his druthers, he would scrap all standardized tests. As it is, his school must administer certain exams to belong to the California Assn. of Independent Schools and to get its students into college.

“The whole testing thing is based on a fantasy that what is easiest to measure is what’s most important to measure,” Weaver said. “It’s exactly backward. The most important things to measure are also the hardest.”

No multiple-choice test can measure creativity, artistic talent, self-confidence and morals, he said, echoing some of the criticisms that opponents have leveled against public-school testing.

Some educators say these tests have value: The results can confirm what teachers suspect about students’ abilities and reveal areas in which a student, class or grade level might need work.

“It doesn’t put me in the classroom,” said Hope Boyd, head of Wildwood School in Los Angeles. “It just gives me a window in, so I can ask further questions.”

Boyd and other private educators often encounter parents who demand to see test scores before they enroll their children.

“Unless you can show your scores, it is a deal breaker” for such people, said Eve Fein, director of Morasha School in Rancho Santa Margarita. Because the Jewish elementary school does not give out its students’ scores, “this is probably not the school” for those parents, she added.

Other private campuses do provide schoolwide scores for comparison, particularly high schools. West Valley Christian School lists its students’ SAT results alongside those of public schools in the western San Fernando Valley.

“It helps to just kind of say, ‘Here’s where we’re at, and here’s how they’re doing,’” said Robert Lozano, the school’s administrator.

Regardless of where the debate comes to rest, Weaver said, private schools will not diverge from their lessons “to prepare kids to fill in [answer] bubbles” on testing forms.

“That’s a fight we’re going to fight till we drop,” he said. “We’re never going to go down that road.”