THE SRV EXPOSITOR
"The past and the present are within my field of inquiry." — Sherlock Holmes,
in The Hound of the Baskervilles
"GRADING FOR EQUITY"
SRVUSD data for CAASPP testing [California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) continues to show worrisome performance drops, especially in SRVUSD's middle schools and high schools (where ideological intrusions are most intense), particularly in mathematics and science. The three boxes directly below show CAASPP MATH test data for SRVUSD as a whole, comparing pre-COVID lockdown in 2018-19 with post-COVID lockdown in 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24.
The District's scores in English, Math, and Science are all deficient. The four boxes directly below show composite SRVUSD math scores, district-wide. Notice they have yet to recover back to pre-COVID levels. Further below, individual school scores are shown for all three subjects, and then a chart published by Ed Source which shows diminishing performance for all racial cohorts.
SRVUSD's Individual Schools' CAASPP Data, Comparing 2019 (pre-COVID) to 2022, 2023, and 2024
CAASPP Test scores for 2024 have now been released. SRVUSD scores are again terrible. But SRVUSD and its tax promoters are nevertheless calling SRVUSD "one of the highest performing school districts in California and the nation." In fact, SRVUSD didn't even make Niche's list of the Top 25 school districts in California.
For 2024, meanwhile: SRVUSD average math-testing drop-off was still down by 5.59 percentage points (i.e., from 77.51% to 71.92% "Met or Exceeded Standard" for Math) in 2023-24 compared to 2018-19.
But some schools' performance was far worse. Among the worst: six SRVUSD Middle Schools, California High School, and San Ramon Valley High School. SRV HS has been the site of multiple scandals, some reviewed on the SRVUSD Scandals page at srvEXPOSITOR.com. Monte Vista has itself dropped in English, Math, and Science.
The SRV HS Library celebrated "Banned Books Week" (like other SRVUSD schools) the last week of September, featuring — and recommending that students "CHECK IT OUT" some of depraved, pornographic books in its collection. Such filth is extensive in SRVUSD's high school library collections.
And now, SRV High shows a drop of 25 points (71% to 46%) since 2018-19 in the percentage of students whose California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) math scores were rated "Proficient" (= "Met Standard" or "Exceeding Standard"). SRV HS results over time in Science tests are uniformly poor. SRV HS has only one National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist this year, from testing conducted in the spring. It's time for the school to halt its record of scandal, and for massive improvement needed district-wide.
And it's long past time for SRVUSD as a whole to get back to its parent and taxpayer-delegated business i.e., the teaching and learning of beneficial knowledge and skills, not critical race theory, LGBTQ indoctrination, and pornography. Parents and other taxpayers can send a message in language that SRVUSD will understand by rejecting Measure Q.
The tables below show the percentage of students at each school with CAASPP test performance at levels 3 and 4 (Met Standard and Exceeded Standard) for English, Math, and Science.
CAASPP testing in SRVUSD Middle Schools and High Schools shows that the longer students attend SRVUSD schools, the worse their academic performance becomes, especially in math and science. SRVUSD needs to STOP displacing core academics with irresponsible indoctrination programs.
Ed Source provides helpful summaries of California school district results on CAASPP tests. In one of the charts shown for SRVUSD, the percentages of "Standard Met or Exceeded" test scores are shown for various racial cohorts.
Note: Students of Asian parentage (48% of SRVUSD enrollment) performed best, but even they have dropped off to their lowest marks since CAASPP tests were initiated in 2015.
White students lagged far behind, with Hispanics and African Americans faring even worse. Without the higher numbers generated by the Asian kids, SRVUSD overall performance would have been even more dismal.
During their sneaky Measure E and F campaign, SRVUSD's tax promoters claimed more "Blue Ribbon Schools" than anyplace else, "last year." No, it was 2021-2022 instead. The four schools recognized in that way two years ago were Coyote Creek Elementary and three middle schools: Gale Ranch, Iron Horse, and Windemere Ranch. The last two have failed to match their previous highest scores in English, Math, and Science. Iron Horse's Science score is worse than ever. Gale Ranch performance has dropped off in Math and once again in Science. Coyote Creek has held more or less static in English and Math, but improved a little in science. But again, the District as a whole — and especially in middle schools and high schools, has performed very poorly, despite lavish funding.
See also the 2023-24 list of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in Contra Costa County, including 57 such honorees from SRVUSD's four high schools (Cal High, Dougherty Valley, Monte Vista, and SRV High), down from 77 last year. All but perhaps five are evidently of Asian-American parentage, based on names shown.
Such a disproportion suggests that something besides or other than SRVUSD "academics" is producing such remarkable achievement levels.
The likelihood is that these high-achieving students are benefiting from parental expectations, their own hard work, and from tutoring as necessary to overcome the academic deficiencies caused by SRVUSD's distractions from the job delegated by parents and other taxpayers — i.e., making the teaching and learning of beneficial knowledge and skills a priority (instead of "Equity" drills and "dashboards").
So one wonders: since 44.4% of SRVUSD's student population is of Asian extraction, what would the District's CAASPP "met or exceeded" performance look like if the higher achieving Asian students were not part of the mix — i.e. what if the overall performance charts omitted the Asian students.
The answer is shown here, in a chart which uses 2019 scores as a basis for comparison, since that was the first year for a State test in science (the CAST test): already lower 2024 met-or-exceeded level dropped substantially lower by 9.7 to 14.0 points.
In other words: without its large Asian-student enrollment boosting scores, SRVUSD state test scores would be mediocre indeed.
SRVUSD's Skewed Priorities Affecting Even UC Admissions?
It appears that SRVUSD's skewing of priorities (toward indoctrination rather than the teaching and learning of knowledge and skills) may now be having an effect even upon college admission rates. The San Francisco Chronicle has published a useful, interactive page which allows viewers to check and compare admission rates of students from high schools across California into the University of California's (UC) nine campuses.
2023: The average admission rates from California high schools help to show the degree of selectivity at these campuses; and UCLA is now the most selective overall, with an average acceptance rate from California high schools of only 9%. Below is a table showing the current acceptance rates from SRVUSD's four high schools. Note that SRVUSD's high school seniors are statistically having trouble getting into the more selective campuses:
SRVUSD's "Deep Learning" is a Deep Fake.
As in the rest of the country: the kids being hurt most by SRVUSD's "Equity" programs and practices are the kids who are targeted by those programs. It's time for SRVUSD to end its curricular distractions from LGBTQ-themed picture-story books and LGBTQ clubs in the District's elementary schools, to overtly racist "anti-racism" lessons, to depraved pornography in high school libraries and even in classrooms.
It's long past time for SRVUSD stop replacing instruction with indoctrination, to stop the practice of unlicensed, amateur psychotherapy, and to return to the teaching and learning of knowledge and skills.
Dan Walters, one of a small core of objective reporters on education, notes that a "new analysis of [test] data reveals that in 'numeracy' — the ability of adults to use mathematics in daily lives — California ranks near the bottom of states." Things may get even worse, though, as California implements its new "Math Framework."
Walters quotes a State Board of Education member, Gabriela Orozco-Gonzalez, a Montebello elementary school teacher, who is pleased with the new framework's "focus on fundamental concepts, open-ended tasks, justice, student inquiry, reasoning and justification aligns with effective mathematics teaching practices." She is "encouraged by the incorporation of strategies to support diverse learners, such as promoting multilingualism, facilitating group work, employing visual aids, and establishing cultural connections.” No wonder Montebello Unified performs so poorly already.
See "The Racial Achievement Gap and the War on Meritocracy," by black author Jason Riley: "Lower standards for blacks means more mediocre teachers and doctors for black communities." Mr. Riley also mentions Dr. Stanley Goldfarb's important column and book, both entitled Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns.
Another Problem
Unfortunately, the CAASPP testing-program individual and group reports provide only qualitative and very generalized descriptions of knowledge and skills — e.g., "Sandra demonstrates some ability to solve well-posed mathematics problems by adapting his or her [????] knowledge of problem-solving skills and strategies. Sandra also demonstrates some ability to analyze real-world problems, and can build and use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems." How does that help anyone?
Taking samples of the computer-based CAASPP tests demonstrates that much greater (and more useful) specificity could be provided if wished by California's educationist powers that be — e.g., "Sandra is able to solve quadratic equations. Sandra understands the slope-intercept form for linear equations and can graph such equations. Sandra is unable to apply basic trigonometric ratios (sine, cosine, tangent) to find missing side lengths in right triangles. Sandra successfully solves most word problems by converting their wording to algebraic equations and solving those."
These would still be qualitative reports on knowledge/skills. But they would provide helpful specifics.
Information on class groups as a whole could also be reported in these ways, so as to assess group strengths and weaknesses, pointing to a need for specific remediation/catch-ups.
The same problems exist for "English and Language Arts" (ELA) CAASPP tests. They could provide results like these: "Sandra uniformly writes sentences with correct subject/verb agreement. Sandra understands and uses correct cases for nouns and pronouns (e.g. nominative, accusative/objective/dative, possessive/genitive). Sandra's vocabulary is superior to her grade-level expectations. Sandra assigns capital letters appropriately. Sandra makes some mistakes in punctuation, and needs better to understand the use of semicolons in particular...." But they don't.
True to form, Charlotte Wood and Stone Valley are already on the leading edge of SRVUSD's own related "Grading for Equity" rollout. They've initiated a grading scheme introduced by a Stone Valley Middle School teacher who herself has eliminated Ds. She reports online to her NEA/CTA/SRVEA comrades that "Students can now turn in assignments late and redo work."
This "Grading for Equity" scheme was introduced in more general terms at SRVUSD's "Equity Summer Institute" in July 2022, in a presentation which included the following slides. Once again, the allegedly "white supremacist society," "white privilege," and "implicit bias" are the motivating factors for SRVUSD's overtly racist "anti-racism" programs. So SRVUSD continues turning over its curriculum, and now its grading, to balkanizing racial activists (and reverse racists).
Notice: the radical activists who composed these slides believe as "fundamental truths about grading" that "You gotta break some eggs to make some omelettes" and that "Fair isn't equal." Grades are now another mechanism for "Equity," a sinking ship which leaves all in the same boat as it goes under.
In 2020, Newsweek Magazine carried the story of what many or most considered the insanely demeaning posting by the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), implicitly criticizing what it called "Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States." The Museum quickly found it advisable, indeed necessary. to take down its shameful posting, itself overtly racist, after ridicule and condemnation came in from all sides.
Most people, at least those with common sense and decency — and of whatever skin color — recognize the values and behaviors shown in the NMAAHC posting on "WHITENESS" (copy below) as generally beneficial to individuals, families, and the culture at large.
Keeping in mind that genuine racism involves a presumption or expectation of better or worse behavior / performance of someone based merely on that someone's skin color or ethnicity: we can see echoes of the subversively counterproductive chart below in the implicit presumptions of the "Grading for Equity" movement — and in such curricula as SRVUSD's own Critical Race Theory lessons (though SRVUSD now dodges that term).
The key to better academic performance is well-prepared and dedicated teachers who make education truly a profession, not a unionized job devoted to indoctrinating students with the latest politically correct fads and fashions. High expectations of students generate remarkable results with students of whatever background, as education heroes Marva Collins and Jaime Escalante have shown.
We're 40 years past the "Nation at Risk" report on educational performance, and yet we're still getting the same results — or worse — which provoked alarm in 1983. Genuine school choice, wherein tax dollars follow students to the schools they and their parents choose, would solve much or most of today's even worse academic performance problem.