Test Is Harder, but Seniors Score Higher

High school seniors continue to read better, according to a new, more difficult version of the California Assessment Program test, state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig announced Tuesday.

“Reading scores took a jump, recovering over the past four years from a decline that occurred from 1975 to 1983,” Honig said of the performance of the Class of 1988. “These were the highest reading scores in the 12-year history of CAP.”

Seniors took the revamped reading test and an overhauled mathematics tests late last year.

Honig said changes in the math test made comparison with previous scores impossible. But reading scores showed a small gain over last year.

“We were able to do a statewide comparison with previous years on the reading test by interspersing questions from the previous year’s tests, but the new math test was just too different to do sound equating,” Honig said. “However, the trend in the past is that math and reading go up and down together. I expect we would have had similar improvement in math had we been able to equate test results.”

Honig said the revised exam “is a much harder test and will give us a more accurate description of student performance.”

For the first time, students were allowed to use calculators on the mathematics test. The test put more emphasis on problem-solving skills and less on rote memory and basic computation, according to Honig.

“We want to see how well students are being prepared for the increasing demands of a complex job market,” he said. “They must have much more sophisticated communication and computational skills if they are going to compete in the world’s marketplace.”

The new reading test also places more emphasis on analysis and evaluation, Honig said. In the past, the test has emphasized reading comprehension.

The new test was also scored differently from earlier ones. In the past, scores of schools and school districts have been reported in terms of the percentage of correct answers. This year, the results were given on a scale ranging from 100 to 400. Individual students’ scores are not reported.

This year’s statewide average reading score was 250, up from 246 for 1986-87. The average math score was also 250.

When seniors took the CAP test, they were asked to report how much time they spent on homework and how much watching television. As TV time increased, reading scores fell, Honig reported. Students who watched half an hour or less of TV daily scored 99 points higher as a group than those who watched five hours or more per day.

“The same trend was found in mathematics, but it was not quite as dramatic,” Honig said.

Thirty percent of the students said they do two hours or more of homework daily, an increase over previous years. More hours spent on homework were also correlated with better scores.

The improved reading scores are evidence that “the whole reform movement is having its effect,” Honig said. “School boards, administrators and teachers alike have responded to the call for tougher standards, and our statistics bear out the results.”

A separate battery of California Assessment Program tests is given to students in three elementary grades in late spring, and the scores are reported in the fall.