Prometheus 6   

Let's get this No Child Left Behind crap out of the way

Student Test Scores Jump
Nearly 80% of California schools meet Academic Performance Index goals, twice as many as last year. Still, many pupils continue to lag.
By Duke Helfand and Cara Mia DiMassa
Times Staff Writers

October 25, 2003

California high schools, which had been the weak link in efforts to raise achievement levels, showed significant signs of improvement this year on state tests, according to results released Friday.

More than two-thirds of high school campuses met test score goals set by the state, twice as many schools as last year, the new statistics showed.

Teachers and administrators attributed the improved results on the state's Academic Performance Index to an intense focus on California's academic standards in English and math, which spell out the skills and material students are supposed to know at each grade level. For the first time, those standards accounted this year for most questions on annual standardized tests.

Experts also pointed to students' growing familiarity with the 5-year-old mainly multiple-choice exams, noting that schools regularly give practice tests to get students comfortable with the format.

Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, said that such "teaching to the test" makes sense now that all schools are aware of what students need to learn. "If you are teaching to the standards, you are simultaneously teaching to the test," O'Connell said.