Test scores show slow gains in Newport-Mesa

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- Student test scores continue to creep upward at a slow

but steady pace in Newport-Mesa.

The highlight of the results of the fourth year of Stanford 9

achievement tests released this week show that elementary school students

in second through fifth grades showed improvement in all four areas

tested -- reading, math, language and spelling.

Students in sixth through 11th grades improved in most areas, with a

few scores unchanging and a couple of slight dips.

“We’ve seen continued growth for four years, so we were happy to see

the short hops continued, especially when you follow the grade through

the years,” said Peggy Anatol, director of curriculum and assessment for

the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. “We want most of our scores to

be above the 50th percentile, and that’s a good target.”

While all of the schools in Newport Beach are above that 50th

percentile mark, there are a number of schools in Costa Mesa struggling

below it.

Several of those same schools, however, showed the greatest gains in

the district.

“The Westside schools have some of the two-digit gains, which is

phenomenal,” Supt. Robert Barbot said of campuses that have the highest

number of nonnative English speakers in the district. “If they’re new to

the country, they can’t stay in the second percentile. They need to move

up each year, so that by the time they get to high school they are above

average.”

Of the 11 schools in the district that experienced gains in the double

digits, nine of those schools were in Costa Mesa.

At California Elementary School, student scores jumped by 14 points in

reading in the second and third grade and 12 points in language at the

fifth grade.

Fourth-grade test scores jumped between 13 and 17 points in three

areas at Killybrooke Elementary.

Several schools with lower-performing students -- Whittier, Wilson and

College Park elementary schools -- exhibited excellent gains, Anatol

said.

“Whittier has shown greatest growth overall. If they’re not the

highest, they’re up there,” Barbot said. “Wilson has turned a corner.

That was a concern of ours last year.”

For parents concerned with how their individual child scored, those

results were mailed out Tuesday night, Anatol said.

District officials also are concerned by the dips in some scores at

the middle and high school levels.

“Our secondary schools continued to be knocking on the 50th percentile

in reading,” Anatol said. “We had good growth at our big schools. Newport

Harbor High School increased in almost every area. Estancia didn’t, but

they tested more students this year than they did in the past.”

School officials will continue to analyze the data as more specific

results are released by the state later this month, Barbot said.

“What we’re interested in is more detailed data, student by student,”

he said. “My goal and commitment here is expecting people to do better

than the year before. We put some after-school programs, some training of

our teachers, which seems to be paying off. What else we can do is see

what has not been productive.”