Improving Test Scores

By Rodney M Brooks

How we can improve test scores.

The real question is not why are test scores low, and they are low, but how long does it take to transition a child not proficient in English to one who is fully proficient. Our district has 48% of the children who are English Language Learners (ELL). One of the criteria to transision a child from ELL to full proficiency is that the child must score above the 35th percentile. The PVUSD recently adopted a three year transition period for a child to achieve full proficiency if that child is learning in English. I am most interested in making sure we transition these children in three years.

Having said that by way of background, there are three things we can do to improve our test scores.

Schools with high test scores have high levels of parent involvement. In other words, low test scores are a symptom of low involvement. We need to promote parent involvement. When that is not possible at low scoring schools, we need to create after school tutorials similar to the one the new principal at Rolling Hills Middle School, Rick Desimone, has started.

We need consistent programming in our schools. The lowest scoring schools have 30%, or more, of the kids who move around during the year. If a child is in 3rd grade at Amesti, for instance, and they move and now attend Calabasas, they should have the same curriculum.

One of the problems of our district is a combination of high housing costs, the PVUSD paying less than surrounding districts, and a challenging student population. We need new ways to develop a larger pool of teachers new to our district. Two ideas are to establish scholarships forour PVUSD graduates, and to encourage classified staff, many of whom work as classroom aids, to become teachers. These local people share the same life experiences as our kids, want to work here, and they have a place to live.