California School Tests--Los Alamitos High blows Away the averages--McAuliff and Oak Fall Short

Earlier this week, the California Department of Education released the results of the statewide testing for 2009. The California Standards Tests (CSTs) are standards-based tests that measure the achievement of state content standards in English-language arts, mathematics, science, and history-social science. Los Alamitos High School beat the averages in all categories, while McAuliff Middle School and Oak Middle School fell well short.

The CST is the primary component of the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. Under the STAR program, California students attain one of five levels of performance on the CSTs for each subject tested: advanced, proficient, basic, below basic, and far below basic. The State Board of Education has established the proficient level as the desired achievement goal for all students.
According to the Department of Education, "The proficient level represents a solid performance. Students demonstrate a competent and adequate understanding of the knowledge and skills measured by this assessment, at this grade, in this content area."

While the total scores for the high school and both middle schools are well above state and county averages, the rates of improvement for the two middle schools are considerably less. In fact, the only year over year improvement at McAuliffe was a 1 percentage point gain in English-Language Arts. The other categories were either flat or down for McAuliffe. For the state and county in total, all categories had gains. History improved the most with a 5.4 point countywide increase. the lowest state-wide improvement for the middle school tests was a 3.1 point increase in math.

The results at Oak also improved les than the state averages for all categories. The only category where Oak came close to the statewide improvement was in history. Oak's history scores improved by 4.6 points, verses a statewide improvement of 5.3 and a countywide improvement of 5.4. For the other categories, Oak showed gains, but at a slower rate than both the statewide and countywide improvements.

The real good news was at the high school, which, with only one exception, improved in all categories at a faster rate than both the statewide and countywide averages. For math, the improvement at the high school was 3.7, verses a 3.8 for all of Orange County and 3.1 for the state. For the other categories, the high school improved much better than the state or county averages. For history, the high school improved by 9.0 points, verses 5.3 for the state and 5.4 for the county. The big winner was science at the high school, with a 10 point improvement, compared to 3.4 for the state and 3.8 for the county.

The high school gains are even more impressive considering the level of the total scores. It could be assumed that it is easier to show strong improvements when the total score is low. For example, when looking only at the point gains, the worse showing among the high school and the two middle schools was the 1.0 point drop in science at McAuliffe Middle School. This is compared to statewide gains of 4.2 and county gains of 3.8.

But, McAuliffe's science total score is 91.9, verses a statewide total science score of 49.6 and a county total science score of 60.8. Last year, McAuliffe ran up a total science score of 92.9, so even though their score is very high for both years, they did report a drop for 2009, while the other averages improved.

In fact, it is nearly impossible to correlate the rate of change with the level of the total score. While it is undoubtedly harder to continue to report gains when the score is very high, it is difficult to establish patterns. Thus, the high school's science score improved by a whopping 10.4 points, moving from a total score of 63.5 last year, to 73.9 this year. Last year's science score at the high school is a few points above the county average total score, yet the improvement was much greater.

Your Editors will report on the elementary schools in a subsequent article. All of the scores referred to in this article are the percentage of students who scored proficient or higher, verses the total number of students taking the exam.

The Los Alamitos Unified School District provides K-12 public schools for over 9,000 students in the cities of Los Alamitos and Seal Beach, the community of Rossmoor, and other adjoining areas. The district includes the Los Alamitos High School, a comprehensive high school, Laurel High School, a continuation high school, McAuliffe Middle School, Oak Middle School and 6 elementary schools.

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2 comments for this article

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Added: August 21, 2009. 01:59 PM Pacific Time

Did McAuliffe Middle School perform below the averages, or is the headline misleading?

The answer depends on what you measure. If you measure the percentage of students scoring proficient or above, McAuliffe is well above the County and statewide averages in all four tests. If, however, you measure the rate of improvement, McAuliffe is clearly below both the statewide and countywide averages for all of the tests. Even if the drop in McAuliffe's science score should not be considered because the score for both years was so high, the middle school still falls short of the rates of improvement for the state and county. McAuliffe's year over year scores improved by 1.0 points for English, were unchanged for history, and fell by 0.1 for math. While starting from a much lower level, the English scores for the state and the county improved 4.2 and 4.1 points respectively. For history, the statewide scores improved by 5.3 points and the countywide averages increased by 5.4 points. For math, the statewide scores went up by 3.1 points and the county average gained 3.8 points. The California statewide goal is that 100% of students score proficient or above. While that goal maybe difficult, it may not be as impossible as it seems. This goal does not mean that 100% of the students must get 100% of the questions correct. The percentage of correct answers needed to be considered proficient or above, varies from test to test, but it is generally around 65%. For example, to be considered proficient or above, in the middle school science test, a student was required to get at least 40 of the 60 questions correct. The 1 point drop in science at McAuliffe means that of the 420 students taking the science test in 2009, about 4 less students got at least 40 questions correct. Aren't statistics fun? Please let there be no doubt that your Editors believe the Los Alamitos Unified School District does a fine job and we are privileged to have our children attend these schools. At the same time, we also understand that one of the things which keeps the district great is their drive to continually improve. For that reason, we believe and independent consideration of important relevant information is worthwhile.

OC180NEWS

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Added: August 21, 2009. 10:55 AM Pacific Time

Misleading article title

Your article title is very misleading. It makes both middle schools look like that they have fallen short of the statewide average when in fact they are way above the state averages! You do finally mention that fact at the end of the article which hopefully readers will read to the end. To focus on McAuliffe losing 1% point in science from one year to the next when McAuliffe is over 90% and the rest of the state average is not even at 50% is totally unfair. Student population change each year and for our middle schools to go up or down a point from year to year when we are so above average is nothing.

The fact that the high school improved by over 10% in science is wonderful. Let's celebrate that gain!

pj4mski

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