Test Scores

Re "State's Students Score Key Gains on Stanford 9 Test," July 18: As a third-grade teacher I was pleased to see that the efforts of so many educators have caused increased scores in reading and math. What concerns me is that the Stanford 9 exam is a "norm-referenced" test. This means 50% of the students who take the test must score below the 50th percentile. Do the State Department of Education, your newspaper and the general public understand this? Your paper points out that the highest scores in the county were seen in the most affluent districts.

Joel Fox attempts to make a correlation between the No on Proposition 98 campaign and the recent CAP testing issue ("Scandal Should Raise a Flag About School Fund Measure," Op-Ed Page, Sept. 28). His effort to discredit Proposition 98 through such an obscure relationship from my perspective is without success. Because I was named in this article, I am expressing in this letter views which are mine, and may not be the views of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the superintendent, or the Board of Education.

Your article on the California Assessment Program ("Test Goals Unmet at Many Schools," June 20 by Pam Moreland) cited one major deficiency in using CAP scores to judge the quality of schools. State Supt. Bill Honig feels that year-to-year improvement in these scores is a very important indicator of educational quality, and state law provides a special grant to schools that show such improvement. However, when the CAP scores at a school are already quite high, it is very hard to show further improvement each year.

Who and what are served by comparing California Learning Assessment Standards test scores? Scores are predictable. High numbers of English as a second language students, transient populations, and cultures that do not give a high priority to education, always score lower. Schools do not get to pick the students they serve. Low test scores inaccurately reflect the quality of the schools and teachers. When will a test score indicate success rather than failure? Taking an immigrant and teaching him or her to read and write in English--even at a beginning level--is a success.

The state Senate will hold hearings later this month to determine if legislators need to change a California law governing the use of student test scores in order to qualify for competitive federal education reform dollars. At issue is a 2006 law that bars the state from using student test score data for measuring teacher performance.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa learned a major lesson in school reform Tuesday: It's hard to fix failing schools in Los Angeles, even those under his purview. That insight arrived with the release of the state's standardized test scores. They painted his reform efforts at 10 of the city's historically low-performing schools as an inconsistent work in progress. A similar story emerged at South Los Angeles' Locke High School, which just completed its first year under the management of a charter school operator.

Re "Morphing Outrage Into Ideas," Column One, Oct. 12 To me nothing is more outrageous than keeping the issue [of disparity in the academic test scores of Asians and Latinos] a "taboo" subject or staying out of the "political minefield." It's the politicians' ulterior game -- to keep the underperforming group as is, under the guise of protection. But it would be totally unfair to the group. If there is a social or economic disparity between racial or ethnic groups, it must be sincerely and candidly dealt with.

Fullerton School District officials tonight will review results of the latest standardized test taken by students in the last academic year. Trustee Kim Ann Guth had proposed posting the scores so parents could compare results to those of other classes in the district. Some parents said they favored the idea. But Guth's colleagues on the school board rejected her proposal, saying principals and teachers already inform parents about their children's scores.

Los Angeles school board members made their first public statements Tuesday about evaluating teachers partially by analyzing student test scores, with most saying that the current system needs to be reworked and some adding that parents deserve more information about their children's teachers. "As a parent, I think I have a right to know," said board member Nury Martinez, who added that she did not believe that the general public should be able to see a teacher's entire review. Martinez also acknowledged that the district has lagged in updating its evaluation system.