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Tamalpais Union High School District administrators said they will not tolerate the continued decline in student scores following the 2023-2024 academic achievement tests.
“I don’t want to hear any excuses,” Trustee Cynthia Roenisch told directors presenting the scores at the Dec. 3 board meeting. “We have to set higher expectations. And we need to hold students accountable.”
Of the district’s 11th-graders who took the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress in the spring, 71.4% met or exceeded their English proficiency standard. In mathematics, 53.5% met or even exceeded the grade level standard.
In 2022-2023 the result was 77.1% in English and 58.2% in mathematics.
“Other schools all date back to the 1980s, like Los Gatos, Saratoga and Acalanes,” Roenisch said, referring to high-performing school districts in the South Bay. “These scores are concerning for a district of our caliber.”
Trustee Kevin Saavedra agreed.
“There’s virtually nothing good here,” he said, referring to the eight-page report presented by education administrators Kelly Lara and Paula Berry.
The report noted that the districts’ test scores were higher than the statewide average and those of San Rafael City Schools and the Novato Unified School District. But it did not compare Tam Union to the other Bay Area districts that scored much higher.
Saavedra said that was misleading.
“Please don’t try to put lipstick on a pig by talking about how we are doing compared to other districts that are not our peers,” he said.
“There’s nothing I’ve seen in this presentation that reassures me that we won’t be talking about the same thing here a year from now — either that we’ve leveled off or that there may be a deterioration,” Saavedra said.
Lara responded that the district has already implemented a series of pre-tests to help students get used to standardized testing and indicate where students may need more instruction.
“We are concerned,” she told the trustees. “We also find these scores unacceptable.”
Roenisch said pre-tests are not the answer.
“You don’t want to teach for tests,” she said.
Instead, Roenisch says, teachers need to provide stronger instruction with more accountability. That includes longer, “more powerful” reading assignments and targeted writing tests in class, where students can’t cheat by getting commercial summaries or using artificial intelligence to summarize what they haven’t read, she said.
“They need to be taught to maintain focus for more than 30 seconds,” she said.
Lara promised to return to the board in March with a progress update.
“We will better assess our practices and see where there are gaps,” Lara said.
Berry said the district is also considering adding CAASPP scores that meet or exceed the standards to a student’s transcript to make the test more important in a student’s mind.
“We know some other districts are doing that as well,” Berry said.
Lara and Berry began the presentation by noting that the district’s participation rate in the CAASPP this year was 90%, compared to 70% in 2022-2023. The state penalized the district in that year’s California School Dashboard scores for low participation.
Participation this year was still below the 95% threshold required by the state, trustees said. Redwood High School in Larkspur was the only school in the district to meet the threshold, with a 96% participation rate.
Administrators said the improved participation, while commendable, does not offset the test results.
“You hid the bad news,” Roenisch said.
Leslie Harlander, the board chair, agreed.
“You should have started with: who cares – there’s something else going on here, and we don’t know what it is, and we’re worried,” she told Lara and Berry.
Harlander said the board has been talking about test scores for years but hasn’t seen results.
“It feels like a big machine is developing programs, but nothing is happening,” she said. ‘There has always been an excuse. Time is up.”
Roenisch says she feels like students have lost the ability to focus on reading a full novel or a longer piece. She attributes this to the widespread use of cell phones and social media.
“Maybe we should take the school with the lowest scores and do the Yondr test on it next year,” she said, referring to the company that sells sealable cell phone pouches. The district decided last month against a plan to purchase the products.
Jennifer Holden, who won a board seat on Nov. 5 and will take office next week, said the district needs to do a better job of notifying parents of test scores.
“Please tell the parents what’s going on,” Holden, who has three children who attend or attended district schools, said during the meeting’s public comment period. “No parent knows about these things.”
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