Oak Park superintendent sharply criticizes California’s Department of Education

OPUSD gets
failing grade due to lack of testing
participation




OPUSD gets

failing grade due to lack of testing

participation

by students

By Lori Porter

Acorn Staff Writer

While many California public high schools, Oak Park High School included, exceed the academic expectations spelled out in the No Child Left Behind legislation, recent data released from the California Department of Education suggests that excellence might not be good enough.


Oak Park Unified School District (OPUSD) administrators are outraged over an August report from the state Department of Education declaring Oak Park High School—among others—as a school that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) because the school didn’t have the desired 95 percent participation rate on the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) administered in March.


In a fight to restore the school’s excellent reputation, Superintendent Gary Richards wrote a letter last week to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, asking him to rectify what Richards called, " a dangerous and inflammatory approach taken in the calculation of the recent Adequate Yearly Progress statistics statewide."


In his letter, Richards vigorously defended OPHS. "While our 10th-graders passed the CAHSEE at record rates, i.e. 99 percent in English language arts and 96 percent in math, we are unable to make our AYP goal because on the third day of testing, 17 sophomores were absent, thus dropping our participation rate below acceptable levels. There were in fact, 93 percent of sophomores present during the entire CAHSEE testing period."


When asked if the absence of 17 students is considered high, Richards said, "No, that is actually a low number of absentees for any given day."


But what troubled Richards more is that the participation rate was designed strictly for statistical use of the California Standards Test and CAT-6, in which makeups are required of all absentees to get accurate and balanced test score statistics. In other words, participation rates are set to produce statistics, not to grade a school’s academic progress.


Making matters even worse, according to a recent newsletter published by the Association of California School Administrators, few if any districts recognized that CAHSEE participation rates would drive AYP. Administrators across California agree that had they known this, they would have made more effort to ensure higher attendance on testing days.


In his letter, Richards reminded O’Connell that in selecting the CAHSEE to measure a high school’s progress, the testing division apparently forgot to take into account that testing coordinators were directed not to do makeup tests and to direct students to the next CAHSEE testing, which was set for July. School officials were told that the students couldn’t make up the test in May because that was too close to the March testing and results wouldn’t be revealed on time.


"Thus, the participation rates for high schools do not give an accurate picture of statewide efforts to comply with testing mandates," Richards said.


Also in his letter, Richards accused the Department of Education of presenting a false statistic to the public, a statistic that Richards said, ". . . belies the quality of California high schools and makes a mockery of the entire testing process."


The report indicated that 65 percent of California’s high schools didn’t make Adequate Yearly Progress. Richards believes that this false data will be used by politicians who are seeking to destroy public education by promoting school vouchers.


Furthermore, Richards argued in his letter that false information has the danger of focusing on the wrong schools, thus neglecting those that need the most help. He said, "There are schools in California that need to improve. These are schools with more serious issues to contend with than Oak Park High School." False data, he said, cheapens the entire No Child Left Behind effort, drawing resources away from schools that need them the most.


Other administrators said the flaw in the testing sends a mixed message to students—that even if they try and succeed academically—they’ll still fail.


Richards called for O’Connell to intercede and stop the "ludicrous manipulation of statistics that has created this testing debacle."





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