Writing Scores of State’s 8th-Graders Show Little Change

California students still have a long way to go to become proficient writers, according to results of a comprehensive statewide test of eighth-graders.

In fact, the average score for students taking the California Assessment Program’s writing test last spring dropped a full point from the 256 average earned by eighth-graders in 1988, results released Wednesday showed. However, Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said the drop probably is a reflection of two new writing-test categories last year and does not mean student skills are worsening.

But they are not improving much either, Honig added in releasing the test results. He noted that the percentage of students scoring “adequate” or above was just 43%, the same as in 1988 and only two percentage points above 1987, the first year the writing exam was administered.

In Los Angeles County, average scores among the larger school districts ranged from a high of 366 (Palos Verdes Peninsula) to a low of 145 (Compton). The 600,000-student-plus Los Angeles Unified School District, which has increasing numbers of students who speak little or no English, had an average score of 202.

Information on the county’s smaller districts--such as Beverly Hills, ABC and Hermosa Beach--as well as for individual schools, was not available on Wednesday but will be published by The Times in future editions.

Despite the results, Honig was upbeat about the test, calling it the state’s “first major step to move beyond multiple-choice tests,” which have been criticized as biased and unreliable. He also said the test has had a positive effect on what goes on in the classroom.

“One really important spinoff of this test,” he said, “is that it forces an expansion of the more rigorous curriculum to the lower grades. To show continued success on the CAP writing test, schools must develop a multi-year approach to writing instruction that crosses all grade levels and subject areas.”

Honig cited a survey of eighth-grade English teachers by Professors Sandra Murphy of San Francisco State University and Charles Cooper of UC San Diego. Murphy and Cooper found that the vast majority of teachers responding credited the CAP writing test with strengthening the English curriculum and increasing emphasis on writing abilities at their schools.

The writing test began as a four-part exam for eighth-graders in 1987. Since then, more categories have been added each year. The latest round of testing included eight essay categories--autobiographical incident, evaluation, problem solution, report of information, firsthand biography, story, observational writing and speculation about causes and effects.

Students must complete their essays within 45 minutes and submit their first drafts for evaluation. The essays each receive three different scores to measure thinking, the writing process and such basics as spelling and grammar. Raw scores are combined in a scaled format to help state and local school officials evaluate and compare the data. (As in other CAP tests, the students’ individual scores are combined to reflect how the school, not the individual student, is doing.)

A writing test for 12th-graders was introduced in the fall of 1988, and there are plans to add such exams for sixth-graders and possibly even third-graders during the decade, said Susie Lange, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

Cinthia Schuman, executive director of FairTest, a watchdog group campaigning for better ways of measuring student achievement, praised California’s writing test as “moving in the right direction.”

“We have to get away from the testing game of ‘Trivial Pursuit’ that comes with multiple-choice questions,” said Schuman, noting that California educators are part of a nationwide trend toward performance-based testing.

Not surprisingly, results statewide showed students who speak little English fared the worst--with an average score of just 167, well below the statewide average of 255, while students whose primary language is English averaged 264.

Girls continued to do much better than boys. They outscored their male counterparts an average of 280 to 232, a gap which has remained the same for two years. Among ethnic groups, Asians and Anglos scored the highest, 290 and 289, respectively; Latino students scored 218, while blacks scored 211.

8TH-GRADE WRITING TEST SCORES

These scores are for the larger Los Angeles County school districts and reflect combined results of eight tests of writing skills administered to California’s eighth-graders last spring. The state provided scores for only the larger districts on Wednesday. The Times intends to publish scores for all local districts and individual schools soon.

DISTRICT NAME NUMBER TESTED SCORE Statewide 308,800 255 Arcadia Unified 580 318 Azusa Unified 617 193 Baldwin Park Unified 976 228 Bassett Unified 307 213 Bellflower Unified 561 259 Bonita Unified 669 278 Burbank Unified 792 271 Charter Oak Unified 395 243 Claremont Unified 401 283 Compton Unified 1,481 145 Covina-Valley Unified 775 258 Downey Unified 1,023 260 East Whittier City Elementary 627 254 El Monte City School 900 234 El Rancho Unified 660 209 Garvey Elementary 594 254 Glendale Unified 1,515 269 Glendora Unified 399 252 Hacienda La Puente Unified 1,480 249 Hawthorne Elementary 520 238 Inglewood Unified 936 205 Lancaster Elementary 829 258 Las Virgenes Unified 630 335 Lennox Elementary 416 171 Long Beach Unified 4,004 232 Los Angeles Unified 34,013 202 Lynwood Unified 777 186 Monrovia Unified 334 279 Montebello Unified 1,961 224 Mountain View Elementary 568 238 Norwalk-La Mirada Unified 1,131 235 Palmdale Elementary 747 243 Palos Verdes Peninsula 654 366 Paramount Unified 752 184 Pasadena Unified 1,319 224 Pomona Unified 1,426 205 Rowland Unified 1,348 271 Santa Monica-Malibu 598 279 Torrance Unified 1,241 289 Walnut Valley Unified 854 304 West Covina Unified 541 236 Whittier City 596 237 William S. Hart Union 1,364 291