By Lookout Staff

August 19, 2010 – Local public school students showed slight improvements this past school year in the California Standard Tests (CST), and scored higher than students countywide and statewide. But the results show a significant achievement gap still exists in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The scores were released this week by the State Department of Education.

The CST measures proficiency in the areas of language arts (grades 2-11), math (grades 2-11), science (grades 5, 8-11) and history (8,11). For the 2010-11 school year, 70 percent of SMMUSD students were proficient in language arts. The County proficiency was 48 percent. Statewide it was 52 percent.

The other CST results include 59 percent proficiency in math (45 percent in County, 48 percent in State), 58 percent in history (41 percent in County, 44 percent in State), 70 percent in science for grades 5,8 and 10 (50 percent in County, 54 percent in State) and 53 percent in science for grades 9-11 (34 percent in County, 40 percent in State).

All the SMMUSD results were improvements from the previous year. The largest gain was in grades 9-11 science, with the proficiency level up six percentage points. The SMMUSD’s CST results have improved every year since 2002.

“The gains over 2009 are part of a longitudinal pattern of steady and continuous improvement over time,” SMMUSD Superintendent Tim Cuneo said in a press release. “This multi-year upward trend is reflective of the high caliber of our teachers and their on-going efforts to improve instructional practice.”

Peggy Harris, director of Curriculum and Instruction, added “The three-percentage point gain in math for 2010 is a good indication that our District’s focus in mathematics is paying off. We look forward to continuing our professional development for 2010-11, particularly honing in on students’ transition from elementary school to middle school mathematics.”

Results for language arts and math broken down by race and economic status show a significant achievement gap still exists. Proficiency levels were the highest for Asian (86 percent in language arts, 80 percent in math) and white students (81 percent in language arts, 69 percent in math). For black students, the proficiency levels were 52 percent in language arts and 37 percent in math. For Latino students, they were 49 percent in language arts and 40 percent in math.

The press release noted that the achievement gap has narrowed in several categories since 2002.

The Department of Education will soon incorporate the results from the CST and other tests to determine the Academic Performance Index (API) and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports. These results are expected to be released later this month.

"The gains over 2009 are part of a longitudinal pattern of steady and continuous improvement over time,"
    Tim Cuneo, SMMUSD    Superintendent

“The three-percentage point gain in math for 2010 is a good indication that our District’s focus in mathematics is paying off...”
    Peggy Harris, director    Curriculum and Instruction