Test Scores

What is the biggest issue facing the school district? Improving the API scores. While the district as a whole improved 18 points over last year's Academic Performance Index, there is still a long way to go for most of the district's high schools to achieve a goal of no longer having an "annual improvement target." The current imposed goal is to accomplish this by 2014. Can your children/teens wait this long for the kind of improvement needed? What can be done to keep test scores on the rise?

Angelique Flores Fifth-grader Shima Nooryzadeh had above-average standardized test scores last year. But this year, she topped them. The Harbour View Elementary School student's Stanford 9 scores jumped in reading from 63 to 87, in math from 82 to 96 and in language from 65 to 92. Her scores reflected the most dramatic rise in the Ocean View School District, which saw higher scores along with other area districts....

RACE FOR HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOLL DISTRICT Name: Rosemary Saylor Age: 50 Occupation: Businesswoman/teacher Family: Husband of 26 years, David; sons Douglas and Robin; daughter Kristina Community activities: Huntington Beach High School PTSA executive vice-president; Band Booster volunteer; site council member; charter member of American Artists of Chinese Brush Painting; member of American Assn....

Clayton D. King A few months ago I received a "Dear Neighbor" letter/flier from the superintendent of the Huntington Beach Union High School District. This week, I received a similar message from the principal of Edison High School. I'm sure I will receive the same message from the teachers' union in the near future. They are all a pitch for the school bond measure on the March ballot. I'd like to take a minute and address the points they raise. 1. Some schools in the district are more than 35 years old and are thus badly in need of certain repairs.

As administrators anxiously await their "grades" from the state when the Academic Performance Index is released Monday, one school in the Huntington Beach Union High School District is just getting its reward money for a job well done last year. Westminster High School was one of the schools set to get a $25,000 bonus for having one of the greatest increases in test scores last year. The money, scheduled to be doled out in the spring was held up by a law suit filed against the state.

It was 20 years ago when Sunday Heppner decided she had enough. “I went to the principal and told him that if I had another class like this I’d have to quit teaching,” she said. “I’d be a nervous wreck.” Her class of third-graders at Gilbert Elementary in Buena Park was like a runaway train, she recalled. The kids were more than just rowdy: They were unmanageable, she said. That was, until Heppner, a Huntington Beach resident, decided to take matters into her own hands.

Kris O'Donnell School administrators in Huntington Beach whose students consistently score higher on SATs than the average pupil in the nation and state hope this year is no exception. Recently released scores on the standardized test showed the national average for the verbal and math portions of the test were up by three points each, but are still lower than last year's averages from the area high schools. "Based on [2002] scores, we are ahead of both the state and national averages for the combined SAT scores," said Edison High School Principal Cynthia Clark.

How pleasant to see a positive, happy headline grace the top of the front page of the Pilot on Aug. 16. "Local schools post gains in test scores," the headline declared and was followed by: "District sees strong increases in math and English...." Let's give the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, principals, teachers and students some well-deserved credit. Critics may claim that the schools taught to the tests. But that is not a bad thing if you believe that success in today's ever more complex and rapidly changing society requires that people be competent in English and basic mathematics and that California educators designed their tests to assess these required skills.