Improving Some Test Scores Will Take Time

As an LAUSD teacher in the upper grades, I was restrained in my response to the rise in standardized test scores (“L.A. Unified Hails Reforms as Test Scores Rise for Fourth Year,” Aug. 21). I was gratified that lower-grade scores had climbed again but disappointed, though not surprised, that upper-grade scores needed improvement. I hope people understand that it will take time to raise secondary-school scores because the basics must be of primary importance in the lower grades. In the early stages of education, a child will retain those basics well into middle and high school.

Currently, a vast number of high school students have no mastery of the basics, and it is often too late to motivate students to even care about the testing for several reasons. First, students begrudgingly take the tests with the idea that the tests measure teacher performance, not theirs.

Second, some students feel that the test scores are of no consequence because the scores have no effect on grades. I’ve given standardized tests and seen students finish in less than five minutes, randomly darkening any circle. Third, some students give up trying to grasp the basics because they feel it’s too late. Given time, I know all scores will improve, but patience and persistence are required.

Preston Spickler

Studio City

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A conspicuous omission in your analysis of why LAUSD’s test scores rose was the short-lived reduction of class size in the primary grades. However this mini “golden age” for LAUSD youngsters has passed. Who remembers when California shared its revenues with children at the pre-Proposition 13 levels? We all must shoulder the shame of what the world’s seventh-largest economy offers its citizens.

Mary Whitlock

Silver Lake