Orange County School Test Scores Mixed, State Improves

California Assessment Program test scores for elementary students rose significantly statewide last school year, while results in Orange County were mixed, education officials announced Wednesday.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said the statewide 1987-88 results bring good news about the academic health of the state’s grade schools. But in Orange County, where CAP countywide scores usually rise every year in all categories, the 1987-88 scores showed a drop in all tested areas at the third-grade level and a gain only in reading at the sixth-grade level.

Orange County’s eighth-grade test scores were the only across-the-board improvements in the 1987-88 CAP results. Statewide, eighth-graders scored especially well in the CAP tests last year, Honig noted. He attributed the spurts in eighth-grade test results to state emphasis on improving junior high and middle schools.

In Orange County, education officials said it will be weeks, perhaps months, before test scores can be analyzed sufficiently to determine why third- and sixth-grade countywide test scores dipped in 1987-88.

Jeff Wells, an analyst in the Orange County Department of Education, said, “Some of the (Orange County) decreases are so small that they are not statistically significant.” He noted, for instance, that sixth-grade math scores, countywide in Orange County, only dropped one point from last year and sixth-grade writing scores stayed exactly the same.

Santa Ana Unified School District--with about 38,500 students, the largest in Orange County--had decreases in most categories of CAP elementary scores for 1987-88. It was the first time in four years that CAP scores had dipped in Santa Ana’s third grades, and the first time in three years the scores districtwide had decreased in the sixth and eighth grades.

“We’re a little bit off this year, but since people in our district haven’t had the opportunity to study all the results, we don’t know specifically why some of the scores are down,” said Diane Thomas, public information officer for Santa Ana Unified. “One of our administrators compared this to a leveling off of the stock market after it’s had a period of increases. If you raise scores and raises scores, there will be a year where they will drop a few points.”

Honig, however, has said that normally CAP scores should be expected to increase in all schools and all school districts year by year. In a statement Wednesday, Honig praised the general increase in elementary-school CAP scores statewide during 1987-88.

“It’s a proud day for schools in California. . . . If we keep this up for five years, we will have a first-rate school system,” he said.

The Department of Education will not release district and school averages until next week. Individual school districts have already received the 1987-88 test results, however, and some of those districts released results of districtwide scores.

Santa Ana Unified reported decreases in scores in reading, writing and math at the third-grade level, and decreases in reading and writing scores at the sixth-grade level. Math scores in the sixth grade stayed the same, Santa Ana Unified reported. In the eighth grade, the district results showed decreases in reading and math, increases in written expression and history scores and no change in science scores.

Garden Grove Unified, the second largest school district in Orange County, reported decreases in districtwide CAP scores at the third-grade level, but increases at the sixth- and eighth grade levels.

Orange Unified School District, the third largest in the county, reported improved scores in all tested subjects in the third and eighth grades, and increases in scores in the sixth grade in all subjects except math.

CAP scores are based on a scale from 100 points to about 400 points.

After a sharp decline in eighth-grade scores three years ago, state education officials pushed local districts to give more attention to schooling in the middle grades by upgrading instruction, providing more teacher training and giving greater attention to the personal needs of youngsters in the pre-adolescent years. As a result, Honig said, eighth-grade scores over the last two years have improved by 12%.

“This means a lot of people worked hard--teachers, students and principals,” he said. “These results are very gratifying . . . (and the schools) didn’t cheat.”

State officials consider the eighth-grade exam the most rigorous of all the CAP tests because it covers a broader range of subjects and has more questions aimed at evaluating higher-level thinking skills, rather than just basic skills. The exams for third-, sixth- and 12th-graders are being revised to reflect the tougher courses and standards of recent years.

State officials recently disclosed that 40 elementary schools statewide tampered with CAP test answers on the 1985-86 exam and 17 on the 1986-87 exam. None of the schools allegedly involved were in Orange County.

Some educators have complained that state pressure to raise CAP scores may encourage some teachers and administrators to improperly coach students in preparing for the exams, and apparently in some cases to change answers. The CAP test is the main indicator that the state uses to determine how well schools are performing. Honig has said that pressure to raise scores is no excuse for cheating, noting that only a small number of schools statewide have tampered with the exams.

Officials have not yet fully determined the extent of tampering that may have occurred on the latest test. However, most of the cheating that state officials found on the 1985-86 CAP exam occurred in third-grade classes, where an abnormally high number of answers were erased and changed from wrong to right. There was no evidence of cheating in eighth-grade classes.

Some educators observed that because the third-grade exam tests relatively basic knowledge, it would be easier for someone who wanted to inflate scores to change the answers.

“We’ve got to revamp it,” Honig said. The third-grade CAP test is “a thin test. It’s only testing a thin portion of what they know.”

He speculated that the drop in third-grade scores this year may in part be due to tougher test security measures that the state implemented this year. “The word is out: Don’t cheat,” he said.

In the sixth grade, the average scores increased by five points to 265 in reading, by two points to 273 in writing and by two points to 270 in math. Sixth-grade scores have been rising for the last eight years, increasing by 12% over the last four years alone. State education officials said sixth-graders will soon be taking an expanded exam, adding science, history and an essay section.

Third-Grade Slippage

In contrast to the gains recorded in the upper grades, third-graders statewide slipped slightly in two areas. The average writing score dropped three points to 284 and math fell four points to 281. The reading score stayed the same at 282.

Overall, third-graders statewide have been performing at a high level, Honig said, noting that the average third-grader today is scoring higher than 79% of all third-graders 10 years ago. But the scores apparently have hit a plateau, perhaps because the difficulty level of the test has not been increased in nine years, even though the curriculum has been toughened, he said.

Leigh Burstein, a UCLA education professor who specializes in educational testing, said the CAP exam is one of the most comprehensive used in a statewide testing program and, in certain portions such as math, is considered “state of the art” by experts. Unlike commercial standardized tests that may have only 60 or 70 questions in all, the CAP is a “matrix sample” of more than 1,000 test items, with each student in a class given a different set of 30 to 40 questions to answer.

Because of the CAP test’s structure, it is harder for teachers to tailor their instruction to the test. Burstein said, “It is hard to develop a strategy for beating a test that has 1,000 items,” and thus its results probably give a truer picture of grade-level or schoolwide achievement.

CALIFORNIA ASSESSMENT PROGRAM TEST SCORES

These are the average scores for third, sixth and eighth grades statewide and in Orange County. Statewide scores rose in sixth and eighth grades but fell or stayed the same in third grade, while Orange County scores showed improvement mainly in the eighth grade. Scores are based on a scale from 100 points to about 400 points. STATEWIDE

Social Reading Writing Math Studies Science 3rd GRADE: 1985-86 280 285 283 1986-87 282 287 285 1987-88 282 284 281 6th GRADE: 1985-86 260 271 268 1986-87 260 271 268 1987-88 265 273 270 8th GRADE: 1985-86 243 248 253 243 250 1986-87 247 254 259 247 256 1987-88 252 263 264 253 263

ORANGE COUNTY AVERAGES FOR ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Social Reading Writing Math Studies Science 3rd GRADE: 1985-86 305 311 314 1986-87 308 315 317 1987-88 303 308 307 6th GRADE: 1985-86 285 296 294 1986-87 286 296 297 1987-88 289 296 296 8th GRADE: 1985-86 264 272 278 265 270 1986-87 269 277 284 270 277 1987-88 275 287 289 277 284