Recently in STANDARDIZED TESTING Category

The state has publicly posted the new Academic Performance Index scores, which show a significant uptick for most campuses.

The statewide API went up 13 points to 767. Now 46 percent of California schools meet the target score of 800 or greater.

We're still combing through the scores, but here are some standouts:

• Harbor Teacher Prep in Wilmington gained 52 points to 936, making it the highest-scoring secondary school in LAUSD.
• Port of Los Angeles High in San Pedro, a charter campus that's starting its sixth year, gained 47 points for an API of 778.
• Troubled Leuzinger High in Lawndale added 34 points to get to 611. Now only Gardena High, the subject of my profile in today's paper, has a score below 600 for South Bay secondary campuses. Gardena did jump up 11 points to get to 586.
• A number of Inglewood elementary schools saw big gains. Oak Street Elementary jumped 84 points to 826, marking the biggest gain in the South Bay.
• Hawthorne's Eucalyptus Elementary also saw a big jump: to 772, gaining 57 points. All of the Hawthorne elementaries saw gains.
• All of Torrance Unified's middle saw gains, including Hull, which was the last to jump above the 800 mark. North and Torrance high schools jumped into the 800 range too.
• Palos Verdes High lost a surprising 17 points, dropping down to 848. That's now significantly below rival Palos Verdes Peninsula, which gained 6 points to hit 891.
• Despite the region-wide upward trend, a good handful of schools did see significant drops, including two PVPUSD elementaries and Victor Elementary in Torrance. Eleven local elementary schools in LAUSD saw drops of 15 points or more.

The U.S. Department of Education is looking to hand out up to $350 million to states willing to revamp how they test students, according to the Associated Press.

Here's more:

The money is designed to encourage states to develop standardized tests that accurately measure how much a child has learned each year and ensure the student is ready for college or a career after high school.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday the tests must be designed to accurately depict what students know and can do. The criteria for the grants were created after 10 public meetings held across the country since last year.

The money is part of the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition, which encourages states to embrace innovative programs to improve student achievement and turnaround low-performing schools.

Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues in today's LA Times that since states continue to lower the academic bar for students, amendments should be made to No Child Left Behind. Changes allowing for uniform, stringent testing that would develop higher standards for public schools need to be created, Winters writes.

From the Op-ed:

A recent federal study noted that 15 states lowered at least one of their proficiency standards in math and reading between 2005 and 2007.

And there's more:

The law punishes a school when too few of its students meet math and reading proficiency targets each year. But the law has a gaping loophole: States get to define proficiency. A state can thus meet the law's targets by defining proficiency down; toughening its standards, by contrast, handicaps its ability to meet the federal requirements.

Of course, low standards have their own appeal. The lower the standard, the more students surpass it. State governments love to tell constituents that students are doing great on standardized exams; the public usually just assumes that the criteria used on those exams are meaningful.

We could make better progress toward an effective testing regime if we changed our goal from uniform national standards to high state standards, which two simple amendments to No Child Left Behind could help bring about.

The Manhattan Institute is a conservative think tank based in New York City.

Many school districts across the South Bay have exceeded performance goals, according to data released Tuesday by the State Department of Education.

The Academic Performance Index, or API, calculates school performance based on student scores on standardized tests.

The top scorers on the API were, once again, Hermosa Beach City, Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified school districts.

Scoring at the bottom was Centinela Valley Union High School District, with an overall growth score of 626, up eight points from the year before.

The State Department of Education reports that 42 percent of schools met the state's target score of 800. Last year, 36 percent of schools hit that target and, overall, schools showed an 8 percent gain in 2008-09. Locally, the biggest gains were made by the Lennox, Lawndale and Wiseburn Elementary school districts.

"More students in California are meeting the challenge of higher expectations," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell in a Tuesday morning teleconference with reporters.

The department also reported the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students and their white and Asian peers has decreased slightly.

Look for the full story in tomorrow's edition.

California students scored higher than the national average on the SAT, results released today show.

From the L.A. Times:

With 800 points a perfect score in each part of the arduous college entrance test, Californians averaged 500 in critical reading, 513 in math and 498 in writing. The national averages were 501 in critical reading, 515 in math and 493 in writing. Both the state and national averages on the SAT showed small dips from last year.
The California total this year was 1,511, down one point, and the national total average was 1,509, two points lower than last year, the report says. Officials of the College Board, the organization which runs the SAT, described the scores as basically unchanged even as an increasing number of ethnic minority and lower-income students took the 3-hour, 45-minute exam.

More than 1.9 million students took the SAT, which is the most common college entrance exam.

More California students than ever before took the 2009 ACT test, according to data released early today. Although they scored above the national average, room for improvement remains.
"I am pleased to see that a record number of California students this year took the ACT college readiness exam," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said in a statement. "This continued increase is a clear indication that each year growing numbers of our students are setting and reaching a higher standard and making the decision to go on to college. As is also becoming the trend, California students continue to outpace their peers across the country on average ACT scores in all subject areas."
The number of California students taking the test - 81,494 - is considerable, considering it has been long-rivaled by its SAT counterpart. First administered in 1959, the ACT serves as a measure of college preparedness among students.

A lot of people out there have called me about the glut of negative news about education and said they want to read something nice for a change. That's a good idea. So I am considering writing a story each week that takes me and a photographer into the K-12 classroom, where the actual business of learning happens.

I want the community of parents, teachers, principals, district types and students to email me at vu.nguyen@dailybreeze.com and tell me why I should visit your school and write about it. I'll probably focus on one subject so if there is an amazing math teacher or an interesting science instructor out there, let me know what they're doing right.

P.S. Make sure the principal of your school or district official gives us the okay.

A UC Riverside study concludes the majority elementary schools in the state won't meet No Child Left Behind standards by 2014, when all students are required to show proficiency in math and English.

The study reports about half of the state's elementary schools will fail to meet federal academic guidelines by 2011.

According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

The English proficiency standard is likely to trip up more schools than math, according to the study. Low-income students and English language learners are the two groups of students least likely to meet the proficiency standards.

And

Schools and districts in California had to have about one-fourth of students proficient in 2007. This year, the standard is 32 percent or higher, depending on the school and type of test. The required proficiency level will go up by about 10 percentage points each year from now until 2014, unless the law is changed.

Interesting story in today's Los Angeles Times about the eighth-grade algebra mandate that the state Board of Education approved in July. That 8-1 vote made a yearly test in algebra -- which many students do not take in middle school, and some struggle with even in high school -- a requirement.

Schwarzenegger endorsed the move at the last minute, while schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell was fiercely opposed, saying it was "setting our students up for failure." The board, which has been sued over the unanticipated vote, gave a three-year deadline to implement the mandate.

Howard Blume's story focuses on a report released today by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution that looks at the nationwide trend toward requiring algebra in eighth grade over the past two decades. The report says the push has forced unprepared students into advanced math classes, while requiring teachers to abandon the advanced learners with watered-down instruction.

To some, algebra is a social justice issue. From the intro to the report:

The push for universal eighth-grade algebra is based on an argument for equity, not on empirical evidence. General or remedial math courses tend to be curricular dead-ends, leading to more courses with the same title (for example, General Math 9, General Math 10) and no real progression in mathematical content. By completing algebra in eighth grade--and then completing a sequence of geometry as freshmen, advanced algebra as sophomores, and trigonometry, math analysis, or pre-calculus as juniors--students are able to take calculus in the senior year of high school. Waiting until ninth grade to take algebra makes taking calculus in high school more difficult. From this point of view, expanding eighth-grade algebra to include all students opens up opportunities for advancement to students who previously had not been afforded them, in particular, students of color and from poor families. Democratizing eighth-grade algebra promotes social justice

In a press release that goes with the report, author Tom Loveless calls it "false democratization."

A full report on the matter will be issued in December.

*Apparently we ran an AP story on this too. Probably should read our own coverage first ... !

The Los Angeles Times had a really interesting take on the Accountability Progress Report last Friday.

Basically, the paper found that California's use of a less difficult test -- the CAHSEE, which is first given in 10th grade -- to assess the performance of high school students led to more secondary campuses meeting federal guidelines. If the state relied on STAR results, fewer schools would meet federal proficiency standards.

The Times analysis identified about 300 high schools that were reported as meeting all federal standards even though their combined proficiency scores in math or English language arts on the California standards tests fell below proficiency levels required for federal compliance this year. Their passing marks were based on much higher scores registered on the easier high school exit exam.

In practical terms, this means that high schools are not being consistently evaluated on what their students are supposed to be learning. The situation exemplifies California's complex, uneven and often competing state and federal accountability systems.

(snip)

Unlike elementary and middle schools, high schools are not rated on whether students master course work intended for their grade level. Instead, the accountability measure is the high school exit exam. It's one of California's high school diploma requirements, designed as a minimum standard for confirming what students have learned. The exam's math section, for example, is based on seventh-grade standards with portions of first-year algebra.

The paper notes that despite the less difficult test, only 48 percent of high schools met federal adequate yearly progess (AYP).

By the way, overall results for the CAHSEE (the California High School Exit Examination) are due out tomorrow.

unlike the incorrect data that we printed in our chart showing scores on yesterday's Academic Performance Index results.

Park Western Place Elementary School has a 925 (not a 725! ARGH!!), ranking it in the top schools in the region and far and away the top performer in San Pedro. The score is the highest among LAUSD campuses in the South Bay and Harbor Area.

Compiling those figures in a short timeframe is always a nightmare for reporters, designers and editors alike, but that's no excuse for the error that dropped the score by 200 points.

We regret the mistake and there will be a correction in print in tomorrow's paper.

*Man, it was much, much worse than just that. A bunch of the scores were misprinted, along with a few errors in the yes/no columns for state and federal standards. I'm really embarrassed by this error, and can guarantee you we'll be doing data charts differently next year. I'm sorry to communities where schools had their data wrong.

Here's the correction that ran on Satruday.

... just an FYI, which is all I can tell you right now, but the state Department of Education is releasing 2007 Base API scores tomorrow afternoon for every school in lovely California.

We'll have it in print on Thursday. Be ready!

Well apparently this Saturday is the second-to-last SAT administration date of the school year, an occasion being capitalized on by at least one organization as an opportunity to dispense advice for keeping kids' stress levels down going into the test.

The New York-based Academics Plus Tutoring Center recommends the following, which are taken from the just-received flackage:

1. Breathe. Breathing deeply can have a significant impact. When you are anxious and tense, it's common to start breathing shallowly, and then less of the good stuff (oxygen) goes in and less of the bad stuff (carbon dioxide) goes out. Shallow breathing can result in fatigue, irritability, mental confusion, lethargy, and even lead to more stress.

2. Focus on what you can do. Test day is the time to relax and be kind to yourself, and not worry about what you "could've" or "should've" done. Take a few moments to acknowledge yourself for all your hard work, take a few deep breaths and apply yourself to the best of your ability.

3. Fuel your body. Food plays a major role in minimizing stress levels. Complex carbohydrates keep your brain alert; fruits and vegetables provide much needed energy; and nuts, such as almonds, keep your blood sugar levels balanced. These healthful foods help fend off fatigue and avoid the negative effects of anxiety caused by low levels of energy and difficulties concentrating.

4. Limit caffeine. Coffee and other drinks containing caffeine are stimulants and can potentially increase one's anxiety level. Studies indicate that caffeine can exacerbate stress and panic which are certainly emotions that students experience on the day of the SAT. Water is the best option for hydration.

5. Visualize. Use the powerful process of visualization or meditation. Both have been shown to lower blood pressure and levels of stress hormones in the body. On test day, relax your body and mind and imagine yourself achieving your goals. An increased ability to maintain focus and a stronger sense of calm will maximize your chances to do well on the SAT.

6. Keep pace. Part of being a successful test taker is using time effectively. Practice pacing yourself during your preparations so that on the day of the test you move through the exam at a comfortable and easy pace.

7. Support yourself. Use break times to support yourself; check in with yourself and see how you are feeling. Did you forget any of your strategies? Have you been communicating with yourself in a positive way? Identify the trouble spots and use this information to make effective modifications once you move onto the next section of the test.

8. Don't beat yourself up. Conserve your mental resources and conduct yourself in a way that will maximize your chances for success. As you move through the exam, steer clear of negative thinking patterns. Keep your focus on doing the problems to the best of your ability and in the most effective and structured way possible.

Pass it on!

Today's paper has a short story about Los Angeles Unified's most current exit-exam results for the Class of 2008. Naush Boghossian, from our sister paper, The Daily News, reports that 85 percent of the district's seniors have passed the test required for graduation in California. The number is a one percent increase over Class of 2007 scores by this time last year.

I have some calls out to see if any of our local South Bay districts are now crunching their own such numbers (the LAUSD release pertains to the test's February administration). Stay tuned for that. The state isn't doing its own release this spring, planning to wait for summer sometime, I'm told.

A greater percentage of students are succeeding on Advanced Placement exams, according to the College Board, which administers the tests. From the announcement:

More than 15 percent of the public high school Class of 2007 achieved at least one AP Exam grade of 3 or higher - the score that is predictive of college success. This achievement represents a significant and consistent improvement since the class of 2002 when less than 12 percent of public school graduates attained this goal.

Read more here.