Pace of School Gains Is Slowed

Fewer than half of California’s public schools met state targets for academic improvement this year, a sharp decline from last year, when most schools met expectations, according to data released Thursday.

State education officials voiced concern about the disappointing results, blaming ongoing budget cuts for raising class sizes and suggesting that schools were losing focus after five years of annual testing.

“Frankly, this is unacceptable,” Jack O’Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, said at a news conference at a Lennox elementary school. “The time has come for all of us to redouble our efforts. Education complacency is simply not an option. We need to focus as never before.”

But testing experts said the leveling off followed a familiar pattern in school assessment programs, which typically produce sizable gains in the initial years followed by less growth later on.

The data released on Thursday represented this year’s final installment of state and federal reports based on tests administered throughout California last spring. The others analyzed the test results in varying ways, but all showed that schools were improving at a slower rate than in the past.

The latest report tells whether schools met their goals on the Academic Performance Index, which grades campuses on a scale of 200 to 1,000 based on students’ scores in math, English and other subjects. Schools are required to reach annual targets as they strive toward the state’s goal of 800.

Separate groups within schools -- such as white and African American students -- also must demonstrate progress each year.

Overall, just 48% of about 6,500 schools statewide met their improvement targets this year, down from 78% last year, the data showed. There were no growth targets for 712 schools because they were new, were specialized campuses or did not test enough students.

Schools statewide lost ground both on overall improvement and on the growth in their student groups.

The Los Angeles Unified School District lost about as much ground as the state overall: 52% of schools met their targets this year compared to 85% last year.

Still, many principals said their campuses were working diligently to raise test scores and respond to the pressures brought by the state and separate federal rules that also demand improvement.

“It’s frustrating,” said Marrio Walker, assistant principal at Walton Middle School in Compton, where scores rose by 11 points this year to 565, one point short of its target.

“We just have to keep going,” Walker said of his school, where teachers have added after-school and Saturday tutoring programs in recent years and concentrated on improving students’ math skills, among other efforts. “We feel very good that we are moving in the right direction and our school is growing.”

The principal at Leo Carrillo Elementary School in Garden Grove said her staff was far from complacent, even as the school’s testing gains showed signs of slowing.

Last year, the school’s index score jumped by 34 points. This year, it improved by just one point, from 733 to 734, two short of its target.

Principal Barb Batson expressed satisfaction with the hard work of her staff and said she envisioned no major changes at her campus.

“We are certainly not concerned that it means we are on a downward path,” she said of the latest scores. “The reality is that as we continue to move up this curve, we’re going to slow down. We can’t continue to improve forever.”

Testing experts agreed, saying it’s virtually impossible for schools to maintain aggressive growth year after year.

“This doesn’t surprise me at all,” Pete Goldschmidt, a senior researcher at the UCLA-based National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, said of the slower progress in schools.

Goldschmidt said schools will need to focus their efforts on traditionally “underserved” students, including those with learning disabilities and others still learning English, all of whom need to achieve at higher levels for schools to meet the state expectations.

“It’s a tough nut to crack,” Goldschmidt said.

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Poor performance

The final piece of the annual school report card released Thursday showed that the state’s schools lost ground both on overall improvement on the Academic Performance Index and on the improvement of student subgroups.

2002-2003

Schools that met targets: 78%

Schools that did not meet targets: 22%

2003-2004

Schools that met targets: 48%

Schools that did not meet targets: 52%

*--* Subgroup 2002- 2003- failure rates 2003 2004 Whites 14% 25% Blacks 20% 44% Latinos 20% 40% Asians 6% 11%

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Source: California Department of Education

Times staff writers Cara Mia DiMassa, Joel Rubin and Doug Smith and data analyst Sandra Poindexter contributed to this report.