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Redondo school district 'happy' with mid-level SAT-9 test results?
by George Wiley
In a letter to teachers and staff dated Tues., Jan. 25, Redondo Beach Unified School District superintendent William E. Nunan, who is out of town attending a superintendents' conference, wrote: "Now, the big question-'How did our students do last year on the SAT 9 test?'"
Nunan then answered the question he'd asked, "Each and every employee's efforts to increase the academic achievement of our students resulted in the simple fact that, overall, students in the Redondo Beach Unified School District ranked higher than 72 percent of the students in California!! We should all be very proud of our collective efforts. The team effort in this district continues to be without equal."
Maybe so. But Redondo had only one school that met state target levels for achievement on the SAT 9. In nearby Manhattan Beach most schools met the target level of 800.
In Redondo, only one school, Jefferson Elementary, scoring 824, met the state level for schools needing no further improvement. Washington Elementary, which sits adjacent to school district headquarters, had the lowest rating of any school in the district at 615 with plenty of room for improvement.
Redondo Union High School had a 673 rating, leaving it well short of the 800 target set by the state, and neither of the middle schools in the district met the target either. Adams Middle School was at 672 and Parras Middle School was at 746.
For the elementary schools, the rankings, leaving aside the two schools already mentioned, were: Alta Vista 786, Beryl Heights 790, Birney 662, Lincoln 738, Madison 717, and Tulita 762.
In the other two beach cities, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan, Hermosa's single elementary school had a ranking of 838, well above the 800 target set by the state. Manhattan's only school to fall below the 800 target was Mira Costa High School which had a score of 766, which was 93 points higher than its Redondo counterpoint's.
Nonetheless, compared to many schools and districts throughout the state, Redondo fared well. Comparative figures for specific other districts weren't available at press time. Neither was an official statewide average. But Jerry W. Klein, director of educational services for Redondo, said that statewide, 50 percent of schools got 630 or better, with the other half falling below that mark. In that case Redondo did well, with only Washington elementary falling below the state midway mark.
"Our average is approximately 725, and that's in the high range," said Klein. "We were real pleased with our scores."
But not pleased enough that the district was going to rest on its laurels, Klein emphasized. He said smaller classes, added trainers for teachers, and after school tutoring for students were steps the district is exploring to raise all its schools to the 800 level. "We're pleased, but we can improve," Klein said.
He said that it was not exactly fair to compare Redondo to Manhattan across the board. "We're pleased because we have a more diverse school population," Klein said. He suggested that Redondo has higher numbers of testable special education students and English as a second language students than the other beach city schools have. "We don't care what anybody else is doing," Klein said. "The whole program is about growth and improvement."
This is the first year that the State of California has released comparative SAT 9 test results. The tests, which are mandatory for students unless a parent specifically asks that a student not be tested, are an attempt, required under new state laws, to get all school districts throughout the state on the same page for comparative purposes.
The comparisons and the targets will allow the state to reward high-performing school districts with added funding and to provide added funding for those schools falling well below target to pull their students up by the bootstraps. The districts meeting the 800 target and the school districts falling the farthest below the target will both be given added funds, one as a reward for good work, the other as an aid to get better.
"The state is bulging with money," Klein said. "There are things we can do, and naturally we want to help every child."
Redondo school board member Robin Shaw echoed Nunan and Klein in commending the district. "I thought we did very well for a first time," said Shaw. "I think it's a complimentary snapshot."
Shaw said the results were particularly rewarding when taking into account that the SAT 9 test itself "did not align" with what the state requires the district to teach. By that Shaw said she meant that the state requires districts to teach from a list of specified texts from which districts can choose, but that often the skills emphasized in those texts are not the same skills highlighted in the SAT 9. "It would be like me taking an algebra class and then being tested for geometry," Shaw said.
She said that educators statewide have complained about these misalignments, but so far to no avail.
Shaw said what the Redondo district now needs to do is "sit down and look at all the disaggregated information from the state" to see those hotspots where the district can take immediate corrective action most effectively.
The disaggregated information, she said, is a variety of information not being made public, like how special education students did on the SAT 9 for instance, that will let the district micro-focus on its various schools and programs.
Shaw said California and many other states want a comparable national standard by which parents and students can measure the effectiveness of school districts, and through which school districts can be held accountable for good or bad teaching efforts.
Klein joked that real estate agents were among the first to grab the SAT 9 results and post them on web sites to attract homebuyers.
Shaw said the one thing she did not want to do, and feared the accountability factors in the SAT 9 testing might bring in its wake, was choosing subjects and teaching methodologies just to raise student test scores.
"Every state now has different requirements. The states have uneven playing grounds," said Shaw. "But do we want to teach to a test? I think teaching to a test cheats the student of a good education. Teachers will skip over a subject in order to get to a subject that's on the test. But it's not fair to the students to skip over things." ER