No Loafers at Oxford: Stanford 9 Scores Shine

A new college-preparatory academy in the struggling Anaheim Union High School District posted strikingly high scores on the Stanford 9 test this year.

The stellar scores achieved by students at the new Oxford Academy were the bright spot in otherwise lackluster results for the district, which overall was below the national average. The overcrowded district has high poverty levels and large numbers of students who are not fluent in English.

Oxford Academy opened its doors this school year to seventh- and eighth-graders from across the Anaheim district; it will eventually educate high-schoolers too. Unlike the average public school, Oxford holds students to strict grade requirements and requires them to place above the 50th percentile on an admissions exam to enroll. Oxford students posted scores in the 76th to 89th percentiles.

“This is fantastic. It’s our report card,” Oxford Principal Tom Peters said Thursday. “When you have a school where parents are really involved with their students and making an educational choice [to focus on college-readiness], standardized testing will reflect higher scores overall. It’s a natural selection process. The kids are working hard, the parents are supportive, and the teachers are gifted.”

He acknowledged, however, that his school has an advantage that few public schools share: the ability to pick students who test well, and to require them to meet standards or face transfer to another school.

Although the school skimmed off some of the district’s best scholars, other middle schools didn’t see their marks plummet as many teachers had feared. About half the district’s other eight middle schools saw their scores dip a few percentile points. Other scores stayed the same or crept upward.

Nor did the outstanding results prompt other school systems to think about setting up similar programs.

“I think any time you pull a group of students of like ability into one setting--especially high performers--you will get high standardized test scores,” said Jeff Bristow, director of testing and evaluation for the Capistrano Unified School District in South County. While he admires Oxford’s success, “it’s like forming an NBA team of no one shorter than 6-foot-9. Their scoring average will be pretty high compared to my 5-foot-11 team.”

Earlier this spring, about 23,000 Anaheim Union High School District students--almost a third of whom spoke little or no English--took the Stanford 9 exam. Results from the high-stakes standardized test will soon be used in ranking all California schools and help determine which students advance to the next grade.

The Stanford test, administered this spring to 4.2 million California students in grades 2 through 11, covers everything from punctuation to the conceptual underpinnings of calculus for high-schoolers. Results from three of Orange County’s 27 districts have trickled in so far; the rest are due by the end of the month.

Anaheim’s incremental gains took a lot of work, particularly with Oxford gathering many gifted students in one place, said Mary Dalessi, the district’s coordinator of testing and evaluation.

“Every one of our schools has really concentrated on teaching kids test-taking skills,” she said. “In high school math, teachers have covered certain parts of the curriculum earlier, so students would know that material before test-taking time.”

For middle schools, the Anaheim district averaged in the 30th to 40th percentiles in all subjects, with the lowest scores in reading--the toughest area for students still learning English.

The weakest scores, in the 20s and 30s, were at Sycamore Junior High, which did post higher marks than last year. Apart from Oxford, Lexington Junior High students scored the highest, in the 50th to 60th percentiles.

That’s at or above the national average, which, by definition, is the 50th percentile. Results are expressed as percentiles, which rank students against a nationally selected group of peers. Half the national pool scored above the 50th percentile and the other half scored below it.

For the district’s eight high schools, scores ranged from the teens to 60th percentile. While still struggling with low scores, Anaheim and Katella highs showed growth in almost every subject and grade level. Cypress High boasted the highest ranks of the group--reading scores in the 40s and almost everything else in the 50s or 60s.

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Anaheim Union High School District Scores

Anaheim Union High School District’s new college prep magnet school, Oxford Academy, posted impressive scores in 1999 Stanford 9 tests. The school’s lowest totals were still in the 76th percentile. The following listings show how scores at Anaheim Union’s junior and senior highs rank, on average, against a nationally selected group. A score in the 99th percentile, for example, is equal to or higher than all but 1% of the comparison group’s.

JUNIOR HIGHS

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Reading Math Language Science School Grade 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 Districtwide 7 34 33 41 42 41 45 39 39 8 37 37 44 46 40 43 41 45 Ball 7 31 31 39 38 39 35 34 34 8 37 35 46 43 40 36 39 36 Brookhurst 7 36 27 45 41 42 44 39 37 8 37 38 42 49 37 45 39 47 Dale 7 28 27 36 38 36 43 34 35 8 30 31 37 44 34 39 34 42 Lexington 7 60 58 60 62 62 68 59 59 8 62 59 62 58 61 59 63 62 Orangeview 7 35 27 37 36 42 34 42 37 8 38 32 41 40 40 36 47 52 Oxford Academy 7 -- 78 -- 82 -- 89 -- 76 8 -- 76 -- 81 -- 81 -- 81 South 7 28 25 37 37 34 35 33 35 8 33 29 42 41 35 33 36 37 Sycamore 7 19 19 26 28 24 30 25 27 8 23 22 30 32 26 30 26 31 Walker 7 44 45 58 55 60 58 49 47 8 45 47 58 56 56 54 54 51

Social science School 1998 1999 Districtwide 37 38 41 43 Ball 33 31 41 36 Brookhurst 43 34 43 43 Dale 31 33 34 41 Lexington 58 61 63 59 Orangeview 37 31 40 39 Oxford Academy -- 79 -- 77 South 30 30 37 35 Sycamore 27 27 29 30 Walker 45 54 47 54

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HIGH SCHOOLS

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Reading Math Language Science School Grade 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 1998 1999 Districtwide 9 28 28 47 48 43 44 38 38 10 26 26 42 44 33 33 40 40 11 31 30 44 48 38 40 40 40 Anaheim 9 16 18 31 37 32 34 26 31 10 13 16 25 33 19 24 24 32 11 19 18 31 33 28 27 24 29 Cypress 9 46 47 66 65 56 58 52 51 10 45 42 61 60 52 47 57 54 11 49 46 64 66 52 54 58 57 Katella 9 28 29 44 47 42 43 36 39 10 26 29 44 51 31 34 37 41 11 31 30 48 49 38 39 41 40 Kennedy 9 42 40 66 67 56 60 47 50 10 40 41 62 64 47 53 52 55 11 36 46 58 73 47 56 46 62 Loara 9 28 26 48 48 43 43 38 37 10 28 25 41 42 33 34 43 39 11 35 26 47 45 42 45 43 36 Magnolia 9 21 21 36 42 37 35 35 31 10 19 19 36 35 27 21 39 33 11 27 25 39 44 36 34 37 37 Savanna 9 32 26 55 44 47 45 44 39 10 28 28 45 45 35 37 42 43 11 36 31 44 49 41 42 43 38 Western 9 25 27 46 50 46 46 37 39 10 23 22 40 43 35 29 37 38 11 27 25 39 44 40 37 40 35

Social science School 1998 1999 Districtwide 37 37 34 33 51 47 Anaheim 27 32 20 23 34 38 Cypress 47 47 49 45 67 62 Katella 38 37 37 35 54 45 Kennedy 47 48 50 49 60 64 Loara 36 37 34 32 54 47 Magnolia 32 33 27 29 47 46 Savanna 43 36 34 37 52 47 Western 39 37 39 29 53 43

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Source: Anaheim Union High School District