California Schools Show Big Gains in Test Scores

Two-thirds of California’s public schools, far more than expected, lifted their scores on standardized tests enough to qualify for a rich pot of rewards set aside to spur academic achievement, according to a state report released Wednesday.

An even greater percentage of schools, 71%, met the state’s prescribed targets on the new Academic Performance Index. But 238 of those schools failed to qualify for cash incentives because they did not test enough students or because they did not adequately boost the performances of sizable ethnic groups or of low-income students.

Overall, the scores of black, Latino and low-income students improved more than did those of whites and Asian Americans, suggesting that the state might be starting to narrow the troubling racial gap on test scores.

“I’m very pleased with the results,” Gov. Gray Davis exulted in a news conference. “After two years, schools are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations.”

The API is among a number of ambitious reforms that California has adopted in recent years. They include smaller class sizes, higher academic standards and more funds to attract and train new teachers. Principals and teachers say all of these changes have contributed to raising test scores.

Yet to come are a high school exit exam, which students will have to pass to graduate, beginning with the Class of 2004, and tests geared to the state’s rigorous standards.

The surprisingly high rate of success among nearly 7,000 schools prompted some testing and education policy experts to suggest that the state might have set the bar too low, given the high monetary stakes for taxpayers. The state Department of Education had forecast that 60% of schools would meet their targets. Outside experts had predicted that far fewer would succeed.

Schools that qualified for rewards will divide up $677 million, ranging from a projected $68 per student for schools that met their targets to a whopping $25,000 per teacher at typically low-performing campuses that demonstrated extraordinary gains. That is more money than has ever been awarded by any state to schools on the basis of results of a single test--in this case the Stanford 9.

Many education watchers applauded the API results, noting that, for the first time, Californians can see for themselves whether schools are making academic improvements.

Still, the API came in for some sharp criticism from administrators in several districts, who noted that higher-performing schools were more likely to reap cash awards linked to achievement gains. Many of those schools needed to improve their index scores by only a point or two to qualify, but most far exceeded that gain.

State education officials have said for months that it was their intention to level the playing field. The formula used to compute the index gives more credit for raising the scores of students in the lowest tiers.

In Southern California, Orange County had the largest percentage of schools qualifying for rewards--76%--and Los Angeles County had the lowest, 68%. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, just fewer than 64% qualified. Statewide, 67.4% qualified.

The API, launched last January as a way to rank schools and measure academic progress, is the cornerstone of Davis’ school-accountability program. For now, it is based solely on the Stanford 9, a standardized test of basic skills that is scored against a national sample of pupils.

In January, schools were given index scores and assigned growth targets that they had to achieve to qualify for rewards. That’s the carrot. The stick is that schools that fail to meet their improvement targets could eventually face takeover by the state.

The API is backed by a trio of reward programs. They are:

* The Governor’s Performance Award, a $227-million pot to be doled out to schools, with a cap of $150 per pupil, to be used as parent and teacher groups decide. By early state Department of Education projections, unless more money is added to that pool, that would work out to about $68 per student for all qualifying schools.

* A one-time bonus program worth $350 million, to be awarded to all staff members in these same schools.

* A further $100 million earmarked for certificated staff members at schools in the bottom half who show the greatest gains above their targets. One thousand teachers whose students show the biggest improvements will receive $25,000 each; an additional 3,750 will get $10,000 each, and 7,500 will receive $5,000 each. The state will not be able to determine who is eligible for these rewards until faulty data from about 600 schools statewide are corrected, probably in December.

Checks will begin to flow in January, Davis said. He added that most teachers and principals appear to be unaware that the rewards even exist.

“To my chagrin, when I go around the state, not everyone is aware of them . . . even though we’ve talked about this incessantly,” Davis said. When the checks arrive, he added, “teachers and employees on school campuses will be pleasantly surprised in most cases.”

The scores suggest that California is beginning to close the achievement gap between whites and minorities.

Although Latinos and African Americans had lower absolute scores than whites and Asians, the two groups posted larger overall gains.

Latinos jumped 39 points on the API scale while African Americans increased 35 points, whites 28 points and Asians 24 points.

Students who receive subsidized lunches--the leading indicator of poverty among schoolchildren--jumped the most: 40 points.

Elementary schools, where the state has focused most of its reform efforts, were most likely to meet or exceed their targets; 75% of them statewide qualified for basic awards. Fifty-six percent of middle schools cleared the hurdle, whereas only 38% of high schools achieved their goals.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said she plans to urge the Legislature to provide more funding for school reforms at the middle and high school levels.

In Los Angeles County, Bandini Elementary School showed the biggest point gain. The 550-pupil campus in Montebello shot up an astonishing 156 points, to 596, easily topping its target of 18.

Principal Anna Chavez said the school--which draws students predominantly from Latino, low-income homes--focused its efforts on staff training and on using Stanford 9 data to pinpoint pockets of weakness in instruction.

A consultant hired by the Montebello district helped teachers develop multiple-choice quizzes on vocabulary and reading comprehension, which were given to students throughout the year to make them more familiar with the Stanford 9 format. Struggling students were enrolled in after-school programs and summer school.

Despite the good news, the school still has far to go. Only 15% of fourth-graders at the school, which encompasses kindergarten through fourth grade, read at or above the 50th percentile, the national average.

But the aim of the API accountability program is to reward schools for improving. And Chavez said she is aware that the pressure will be on next year to sustain strong gains. “The encore is the scary part,” she said.

Many education watchers wondered whether the state might have made this first API go-round too easy for some schools. Most concluded, however, that it was probably wise to start with manageable targets.

“It probably will be great for morale,” said Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael), head of the Assembly education committee.

Davis said he intends to meet this fall with principals and teachers to get their reactions to the accountability program. “We almost certainly will make adjustments,” he said.

“This could be talked about as one small step on a journey to substantial improvement,” said David Rogosa, an educational statistician at Stanford. He added that, to amount to real improvement over time, “it’s got to be repeated year after year.”

Los Angeles Supt. Roy Romer announced the district’s results before an attentive crowd of second-graders sitting cross-legged on the floor of the library at Allesandro School in Northeast Los Angeles.

Principal Lynn Andrews said Allesandro’s API score had improved by 65 points, more than five times the target of 12.

“This district is doing well,” Romer said. “We are very happy with the results and very focused obviously on the work we have left to do.”

As was the case statewide, the strongest gains were made in elementary schools, where the district has concentrated on improving language arts and reading skills. Seventy-five percent of Los Angeles Unified’s elementary schools made their targets--equal to the statewide average for elementary schools. Of those, 180 achieved scores that were at least double their target scores, he said, an achievement that puts many of them in the running for huge teacher bonuses.

However, the district lagged in improvements in middle and high school scores, he said. Only 39% of the district’s middle schools made their targets, compared with 56% of middle schools statewide.

High schools fared even worse: Just 16% made their targets, less than half the statewide average.

Los Angeles high schools are subject to some “unique conditions,” Romer said, but “we are not doing as well as we ought to and want to.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Duke Helfand and Jill Leovy in Los Angeles, Jessica Garrison in Orange County and Anna Gorman in Ventura. Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis, and Sandra Poindexter, data analyst, also contributed.

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Who Made the Grade

Here’s a look at the percentage of schools that qualified for rewards in selected counties.

Statewide

Sacramento: 73%

San Diego73%

Santa Clara: 71%

Alameda: 63%

Fresno: 58%

San Francisco: 13%

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Southern California

Orange: 76%

Riverside: 70%

Ventura: 69%

San Bernardino: 69%

Los Angeles: 68%

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MORE SCORES

How did your school fare? See tables, pages B4-B7

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Source: Los Angeles Times calculations based on California Department of Education data