Point Reyes Light - November 20, 2003
Tomales High outshines E. Marin schools
By Andrew Pridgen
Shoreline School District, which has one of the highest percentages of students from Spanish-speaking homes of any district in Marin, will receive academic recognition from the county Office of Education at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in West Marin School.
Michael Juric, assistant superintendent for Education Services, this week told The Light he will congratulate the school board for Shoreline students’ continued improvement on the state’s standardized tests.
The 2003 test results mark the third straight year of dramatic increases in the district’s Academic Performance Index (API) – scores that measure reading, language arts, and math skills.
Wealthier school districts in East Marin have sometimes been considered superior to Shoreline, However, on Tuesday Juric told The Light that the West Marin district’s steady improvement has made its schools "not only comparable with other schools in the county, but Shoreline schools are starting to shine on their own. They’re doing very, very well."
Part of Shoreline’s improved test scores is being attributed to helping Latino students master English. Three years ago the county began to train teachers to work with what the Office of Education calls "second-language students."
Said Juric, "In order to reach out to Latino communities and students who speak another language at home, you have to provide the teachers with an extensive amount of training. So far, it seems to be working, not only with test scores, but with the rate [at which] these students are learning."
The state requires every district to have overall API scores above 560. (Sanctions can be brought against school districts that fall below the mark, and in some extreme cases, the state has taken over operation of districts with consistently low scores.)
While all Shoreline schools are well-above the state-required 560 mark, the county "bar" is set at 800.
"We’re the highest-scoring county in the state," said Juric. "Once schools make it above 800, in our eyes they’ve made it. Shoreline school’s [students and teachers] keep working extremely hard to get there."
In 2000, Tomales elementary scored 710. By 2003, that score climbed to 768. In 2000, West Marin School scored 667. By 2003, that score had risen to 745. In 2000, Tomales High scored 631, and it has shown the most-dramatic improvement in Marin County, having improved by almost 100 points in three years. The 2003 score was 735.
"What we look for are results that are long-lasting," Shoreline Supt. Stephen Rosenthal told The Light. "A spike one year and a drop the next year doesn’t do any good. These changes and a program that suits all students have been embedded within the system, and it doesn’t only show in test scores."
In contrast to Tomales High’s score of 735, the Tamalpais High School District (Drake, Redwood and Tamalpais) together scored 690, a drop of 117 points in one year. Ironically, some West Marin parents assume the East Marin district is better for their children.
"We don’t compare ourselves to other schools," said Supt. Rosenthal. "We’ve made some dramatic changes; we’ve gotten help from the county’s doing an extensive amount of training for teachers; and we’ve surprised a lot of people."