Learning From the Scores

Everywhere students turn, they see the posters plastered on classroom and office walls at Burbank Boulevard Elementary School: “Literacy is our school focus,” and “We are reading our way to success.”

The message has sunk in. According to a Times analysis of standardized test scores released Monday by the state Education Department, the 640-student campus increased its overall score during the past two years by an impressive 18.2 percentage points.

In 1998, 22.4% of Burbank Elementary students scored at or above the 50th percentile, the national average. This year, the figure increased to 40.6%.

The gain at the North Hollywood school is especially notable, school officials said, because the multitrack, year-round campus struggles with overcrowding and poverty. Also, an estimated 65% of the mostly Latino students have limited English proficiency.

Except for third-graders, Burbank students improved on this year’s Stanford 9.

“We’re having a party,” said Principal Sharon Greene. “Everyone here has worked so hard. We’re feeling pretty good.”

Their strong performance could mean more money for the school.

Besides measuring performances by students, schools and districts, state legislators recently mandated that Stanford 9 scores will determine how the state allocates hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to high-performing schools as well as to students, teachers and administrators.

The state will announce the awards in November, Doug Stone, a spokesman with the California Department of Education, said Tuesday, adding: “It’s premature to say what schools will receive bonuses.”

With or without rewards, the school will continue its focus on literacy, Greene said. Better reading skills improve student performance in all subject areas, she said, including math, since students must read directions and word problems on the Stanford 9.

The school devotes at least two hours of classroom lessons aligned to state standards for language arts and, during the last two years, has created literacy projects.

One initiative is a reading lab for students in grades one through five who need additional help with reading, writing and comprehension. The school has a teacher whose sole responsibility is the “lab,” or classroom, where students in groups no larger than 10 sound out words, analyze definitions and decipher passages.

Last year, 86 students went through the program, said Thomasenia Ford, the reading lab teacher.

Ruben Rodriguez, 9, a fourth-grader, said he enjoys the reading lab because he receives a lot of teacher attention and can concentrate better. “It’s really fun,” Ruben said. “It helps you to learn. I even read at home.”

The staff at Burbank Elementary set up a garden bench with a shade umbrella near some trees and purple flower patches and designated it “the reading area.” Greene said it’s a place where any student can go for quiet reading time and relaxation.

Greene also established a principal’s reading award program, in which a student from every grade level gets to read stories--from Dr. Seuss to Harry Potter--to the principal in her office, and receives a certificate and a mention in the school bulletin. Students are selected for being top readers or simply because a teacher wants a student to feel encouraged.

“It’s a big deal for the student,” said Greene, who said the idea just popped into her head one day. “They all want to read to the principal.”

Along with other schools in the North Hollywood cluster, Burbank Boulevard assesses the reading ability of first- and second-graders three times a year.

Students take oral tests one-on-one with a teacher who determines whether the child can sound out consonants and vowels, blend letters into words and decipher syllables, among other skills. Children deficient in certain areas receive specialized lessons until they understand.

The assessment, which may eventually be expanded to all elementary grades, is key. “It’s like a car,” said Donna Stern, coordinator for a federal program for at-risk students. “You can’t fix a problem until you know what’s wrong.”

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Higher Scores

Burbank Boulevard Elementary has seen test scores improve significantly over the past two years. The composite percentage of students scoring at or above the 50th percentile has climbed from 22.4% in 1998 to 40.6% this year. The chart below breaks down the figures by grade, showing the percentage of students at or above the 50th percentile in reading and math, and the change.

*

READING

*--*

2-year Grade 1998 1999 2000 change* 2 25 27 47 22 3 8 44 36 28 4 19 21 42 23 5 18 26 25 7

*--*

*

MATH

*--*

2-year Grade 1998 1999 2000 change* 2 28 31 48 20 3 21 49 48 27 4 21 22 36 15 5 14 24 31 17

*--*

*

* The change represents the percentage of students who moved up in the rankings.

Researched by Times director of computer analysis RICHARD O’REILLY and SANDRA POINDEXTER / Los Angeles Times

Source: California Department of Education