Test finds progress, but why?

STAR results spur debate on the impact of Prop. 227, the virtual ban on bilingual education ban in the state.

Standardized test scores released by the Department of Education on Thursday — after a series of blunders by the test publisher led to a three-week delay — show improvement for most of California’s students. Nevertheless, the scores already are fodder for another controversy.

This time, supporters and critics of bilingual education are battling over what the scores say about Proposition 227.

To Ron Unz, author of the ballot measure that virtually banned bilingual lessons in California last year, the numbers are proof that Prop. 227 is working. He says that limited English proficient (LEP) students improved at a rate almost double that of students without language problems.

To Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of public instruction, the scores show that LEP and non-LEP students improved at a “consistent” rate. She said that it is too early “for anyone to celebrate or throw stones” at Prop. 227 because more analysis must be done to define what contributed to score increases.

She highlighted scores that showed California students who are fluent in English performed better than the national average and noted that the national comparison includes only 1.8 percent English learners while California has more than 25 percent. She said the governor and Legislature need to provide more funds to help further boost the performance all students — especially those with language barriers.

Meanwhile, educators in many districts, including Pittsburg Unified, say they don’t have a clear picture of how their students fared based on language ability. State officials acknowledged that the scores released on Thursday do not identify the language level of 420,000 students.

For example, the numbers posted on the Department of Education Web site http://star.cde.ca.gov) for Parkside Elementary in Pittsburg show that the school tested only three LEP students when in fact about 45 percent of the school’s 492 test takers were English learners.

Jim Hahn, the district’s curriculum coordinator, insisted the demographic breakdown of LEP students across the district was incorrect. “I’m not sure what the problem is,” he said. “All I can tell you is that the testing company is working on it, and we’re working on it with the state Department of Education to try to straighten it out.”

In its second year, the Standardized Testing and Reporting program has been mired in controversy and plagued with problems.

On June 30, the deadline for the release of the STAR report, Eastin decided to delay posting comprehensive scores on the department’s Web site after she learned that the test publisher had mixed the results of more than 200,000 students with different language abilities.

Harcourt Educational Measurement, the Texas firm that administered more than 4 million tests to students in grades 2-11, acknowledged that in its rush to meet the state deadline, it had included scores of students who had been redesignated as English fluent with those who are still considered English learners.

Eastin said that the blending of the scores by Harcourt had led to some “unfortunate press releases” in which groups claimed more success for LEP students than they actually achieved.

“We have seen some (success),” she said. “But not an off-the-chart winner.”

Unz, whose group English for the Children weeks ago credited Prop. 227 for doubling and tripling some test scores for immigrant children, said on Thursday that the revised scores still showed “amazing” improvement.

He said that districts such as Oceanside Unified near San Diego, which applied the bilingual ban in strict fashion, saw scores improve for LEP students by up to 60 percent.

Statewide, for instance, the percentage of second-grade English learners in reading scoring above the national average went from 15 percent to 19 percent. In math, that percentage rose from 26 percent to 33 percent.

“These are very impressive numbers,” Unz said.

Until Thursday, the Department of Education had released only overall statewide results and breakdown of those scores by students’ gender and economic background.

Most of the state’s 1,055 school districts, however, released individual scores to parents and districtwide scores to school boards weeks ago.

Last week, the test publisher said it had scored 190,000 students incorrectly because it had misidentified the number of months they had been in school.

Antioch Unified, which operates year-round schools, sent incorrect scores to parents and on Thursday was still compiling the corrected reports.

Regardless of Prop. 227’s impact, the sharply contrasting scores of LEP students and non-LEP students bring into focus the work that remains in California education.

For example, at Marylin Avenue Elementary in Livermore, LEP fourth-graders scored in the 18th percentile in reading, while their English-proficient classmates scored in the 52nd.



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