DISTRICT SEEKS TEST ANSWERS; HART OFFICIALS SAY RESULTS NOT SPECIFIC ENOUGH TO CHANGE CURRICULUM.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

While the latest round of Stanford 9 tests show that local middle school students performed at levels consistent with the previous year, school officials expect the results to have little impact on curriculum reform this year.

The problem is that the results don't point out where specific improvements are needed.

The results, re-released this week after state officials and the test publisher, Harcourt Educational Measurement, corrected scoring discrepancies, showed slight improvements in all subject areas of math, reading, language and spelling for seventh-grade students, with marginal gains of one to four percentile points.

Math scores jumped from the 65th percentile in 1998 to the 67th percentile in 1999; reading jumped three points from 61 to 64; language from 68 to 72; and spelling rose one point, from the 59th to 60th percentile.

For eighth-graders, improvements of one to two percentile points were seen in most areas, with the exception of reading, which showed a decline from the 66th percentile in 1998 to the 64th percentile in 1999. Math gained two percentile points from 68 to 70; language from the 68th to 69th percentile; and spelling from the 49th to 51th percentile.

Interpreting the districtwide scores, Gary Wexler, director of curriculum and assessment for the William S. Hart Union High School District, said educators generally regard the 50th percentile, which is compared against national averages, as the benchmark that shows whether students are performing to grade level.

``Junior high scores went up a little more last year. There's a slight gain and overall, they are fairly good,'' Wexler said. ``Of course, there's always room for improvement. We can always do better as educators.''

As a rule of thumb, educators also look at national percentile rankings within a range of plus or minus four points, he said. In that respect, middle school test results showed no drastic changes from those in 1998, the state's first Stanford 9 testing round.

But the main problem with the test results, he said, is that there are subsections and details about specific areas of strengths and weaknesses of student performance.

``What they gave us is interesting, but what they give us doesn't help us go back to teachers and tell them exactly what to do better,'' Wexler said.

He likened the Stanford 9 results, which are augmented to match state standards, to a doctor telling patients that their overall health rates a ``20,'' on a scale of 1-to-50.

``We want to know if we're deficient in any way and, if so, how we can improve. We want to know if our blood pressure's OK, if we're overweight, what our cholesterol count is,'' Wexler said. ``If a doctor didn't tell you all those things, you'd find another doctor.''

Student assessment results would be of better use if they revealed, for example, that students did poorly with fractions.

With that information, administrators would know for certain that teachers should spend more time on fractions lessons in the classroom, or change their schedule to introduce them earlier in the school year, Wexler said.

He also pointed to seventh-grade gains in all subject areas, including math, reading, language and spelling, which ranged in percentile gains from one to four percentage points.

``We can pat ourselves on our backs until we've rounded our shoulders,'' Wexler said, ``But the truth is that in a normal range, you tend to figure on a plus or minus of three to four points in either direction.''

Administrators need to be cautious in applying Stanford 9 results with such marginal changes to overhaul the current curriculum, he said, because several factors might have skewed results.

School officials also must use caution in comparing this year's eighth-grade test scores to those in seventh grade last year - which represent the same group of students - because Stanford 9 test forms change from year to year, as do the order in which teachers present their curriculum to students.

He pointed to another example at the high school level, in which 10th-grade students placed in the 49th percentile last year for history and social studies, but placed 69th this year in the 11th grade.

``We should be out dancing in the streets,'' Wexler said.

But not knowing what works well in the curriculum is just as frustrating as not knowing where the weaknesses lie, he said.

Curriculum specialists within the district will study ``strange'' results such as those to find out the cause behind such a dramatic jump, he said.

A team of administrators continued to digest the results Tuesday to present its findings to the school board meeting later in the day. The team will continue analyzing Stanford 9 results throughout the summer to determine whether any curriculum overhauls are needed, Wexler said.

In the meantime, Hart district administrators and curriculum leaders will continue to focus on meeting the new educational standards set by the state frameworks last year, Wexler said. Training will continue as it has, with new teachers attending weeklong workshops in the summer, followed by monthly training meetings to hone their methodology in applying their set curriculum. Veteran teachers will attend professional development meetings and workshops as they have, generally every three months.