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Beverly
Hills Schools Don't Live Up To Their Reputation
Despite constant district-wide
propaganda about how high Beverly Hills schools rank, state scores
show we are performing far below the average for similar schools.
Beverly
Hills High School: for years it was seen as a super-wealthy elite
school where the brightest minds studied together. In fact, due to
the high property values and subsequent high property taxes,
students in Beverly Hills could expect the finest education
because there was massive funding. All of that changed, however,
when California tried to provide an equal opportunity for all
students. Proposition 13, which passed in 1978 cut off property
taxes as a major source of funding for schools. At approximately the
same time, the Serrano-Priest decision crippled local school funding
sources. The effect on the
Beverly Hills School District was a severe budget cut. Paralleling
such budget cuts was a decline in academic scores. It hasn't been
until recently, however, that the decline became even more noticeable.
No student can go through the Beverly Hills school system without
hearing district propaganda saying how high district test scores
are. Beverly Hills High School had the honor of becoming a National
Blue Ribbon School and a California Distinguished School. The
administration is by no means shy in boasting about the school's
superior academic standing. A simple glance at Beverly's website
reveals the propaganda in full rigor. The actual facts and
"un-spun" statistics tell another story, however. Test
scores show we are not one of the top high schools in the nation, we
are not on of the top in the state, and we aren't even the top in
the county. Although we perform at a high level compared to most
(for we are in the top ten percent in the state), district scores
are nowhere close to what they used to be and what they are made up
to be.
Every year the state of California releases reports regarding
academic performance in California schools. The overall academic
performance index (API) scores rate schools on a number of criteria
regarding academic performance of the students. Contrary to what the
school would have you believe, our API scores ranks us as the 43rd
high school in the state. Even this ranking can be deceiving,
however, for the subject tests and our SAT scores are even lower on
the scale. On SATs, our averages ranked us 48th in the state, with
such school districts as Arcadia, Fullerton, and LA unified scoring
higher than us, sometimes by several hundred points. The average
score of 1163 puts us as the 11th school just in LA county alone. Even though we spend far more money per student
than many districts (we are one of the highest spending medium to
large
sized district in California), our scores are lower than various
districts who spend thousands less. Last school year, we spent $8584
per student in attendance. This equated to thousands of dollars
per student more than each of the other public schools that
performed better than we did on the SAT.
When one looks at college acceptances, it is apparent once again
that we are not one of the top high schools in the nation. Although
it is understandable that Harvard Westlake, a private school, have
students go in larger numbers to prestigious universities, the
comparison with Beverly is shocking. When 12 people from Harvard
Westlake got into Yale, 14 into Stanford, and 9 into Harvard last
year, from Beverly the numbers were 0, 1, 1, respectively.
Considering the graduating class at Beverly was nearly twice as
large as that at Harvard Westlake, the numbers for Harvard Westlake
should be doubled to fairly compare them to Beverly's statistics.
Despite the comparison being somewhat unfair in that Beverly is a
public school, one should still take into account the stark contrast
in where students are getting accepted to.
Although there are slight variations from year to year, the academic
situation has not been addressed and scores are either remaining
fairly constant, or are declining. In 1999 we placed 23rd in the
state of California which can be seen as a decent rank, but far from
being one of the elite schools the district portrays us to be. Just
5 years later, however, we have moved down 20 whole places to be
43rd out of the reported schools. Even though we have one of the
highest teacher to student ratios and we spend far more money
than most other districts do, we are still performing below many comparable
schools.
Defenders of the current academic situation cite various
reasons for the school's performance, but statistics show that all
such excuses have little merit. On such excuse is that our district
has less Asians than other districts that are doing better than we
are. This is false, however, because many of the schools that are
performing higher than we are (with less money mind you) have less than our 15
percent Asian makeup. Although it makes some difference, studies
show the ethnic makeup of Beverly is insignificant and is not at
fault for its relatively poor scores. Other excuses that have been
commonplace in the district when confronted with the scores include
financial demographics, saying that students who come from
socio/economically challenged families tend to do worse on tests.
Although studies show there is merit behind this statement, BHHS
does not have a large percentage of students who come from
economically depressed homes compared to many other districts.
Among people who are informed about the scores in Beverly Hills
schools, many feel something is going wrong. It seems that we have
everything it takes to be one of the best public schools in the
nation: we spend (relatively) massive amounts of money for each
student, we have small classroom sizes, one of the largest teaching
staff to student ratios in the state, and 92 percent of parents who
have children in the district took at least some college. Clearly,
there is a problem - for it seems like we have just the right brew
for success, yet something is faltering. Science teacher and parent Gary
Thorpe, who runs bhschools.com, is quite concerned about getting to
the bottom of the district inefficiency. He is committed to having
the district raise its scores, and he has proposed a few ideas that
might help. Among the reforms he proposes: greater accountability
and more teacher incentive to perform. Former board member Gerald
Lunn has also been very active on the issue. On his website, he says
that greater teacher and parental involvement in curriculum
decisions is critical. Whatever the coarse of action the school
board decides to take, it is clear that the district can do better
than it is doing now.
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For
More Information and to see actual reports about how student scores
are doing in Beverly Hills, see the following sites:
www.geraldlunn.com
www.bhschools.com
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/
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