Opinion: This year’s state test scores: a mixed report card

To the editor: Looking at and evaluating “students meeting standards� between ethnic groups is important, of course. However, without also looking at differences in home situations and reaching into them, gains in test scores will continue to be minimal.

(“State test scores up, but most students fall short,� Aug. 25)

Blaming teachers and a lack of funding is just an easy out. I don’t see anything in this article about programs that involve the parents, caregivers, guardians or anything to do with home life.

As a retired community college English professor, I have seen many students from homes that valued education and many students who had to struggle against the home situation before obtaining a high school diploma and entering higher education. All life begins in the home, “in the high chair,� so to speak — and that is where we as educators need to begin.

Beverly Reilly-Pinsky, Newport Beach

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To the editor: I have lived in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, and I strain to recall a Times headline that didn’t portray education in California as being in crisis. This time we read, “Across the state, 48% of students met English language arts standards and 37% met math standards, according to the test results released Wednesday morning.�

This pathetic performance, year after year, comes from one source: Our government-run education system. Any private corporation with such a track record would have gone out of business decades ago.

Prediction: Unless government gets out of education and turns it over to the private sector which, unlike government, thrives on competition and innovation, The Times be running similar headlines 50 years from now.

Al Ramrus, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: In your story on test scores, it states, “The top-performing districts were wealthy enclaves such as Montecito, San Marino and Cupertino.� The article goes on to say that “the scores are just one factor that parents can use to assess the progress of the students and the quality of the schools they attend. “

No. We have known for decades that these scores primarily reflect the home environment of the students and not the schools. In fact, researchers tell us that only about 15% of a student’s level of academic achievement reflects on the school.

When we start to address the real causes of school failure, perhaps we’ll begin to see some real progress.

Linda Mele Johnson, Long Beach

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