Zimmer asked for a breakdown of how many students are graduating with D grades and in what subjects.

“How many graduate with several D’s? How many of those D’s are in algebra?” asked Zimmer, who said he tries to remain data-driven in his decisions. “I see this and it causes me a lot of stress.”

He also wanted to know if the district is notifying local colleges and universities to let them know that the second-largest school district in the country is hiring academic counselors again.

“We know about the teacher shortage coming up, but I’m worried that we need to be working on hiring academic counselors,” Zimmer said. He pointed out that the district administrators should let the local colleges know of the district’s needs. “If they know we’re hiring, they will graduate them. This is a pretty market-driven system.”

Those academic counselors will also help students with their credit recovery program and push them toward graduation, he noted.

Although some of the academic scores came close to the district’s targeted goals, some were sorely lacking.

Cynthia Lim, the executive director of the Office of Data and Accountability.

For example, every high school student is supposed to have an Individualized Graduation Plan (IGP), but only 59 percent do, said Cynthia Lim, the executive director of the Office of Data and Accountability for LA Unified.

“We had a few glitches in the system,” Lim explained.

At one point Tuesday, Zimmer turned to the new student school board member, Karen Calderon, and asked if she had an Individualized Graduation Plan. No, she didn’t, but she said she has a good relationship with the counselors at her high school.

Also, about 38 percent of the district students taking the college-level Advanced Placement Exams received a 3 or higher, making them eligible to get college credit, Lim said. The target that the district is striving for next year is 40 percent.

“We have some improvement needed there too,” Lim reported.

The school district also wanted at least 48 percent of graduating seniors to pass the A-G class requirements with a C grade or better. They hit 42 percent.

“We have some work to do there,” Lim said. She also pointed out that the school board voted that students could get their high school diploma if they received a D-grade in the A-G classes, but “the goal is still to be college prepared and we want to cap it at a C. We are trying to improve that D to a C.”

Fellow board member Ref Rodriguez echoed some of Zimmer’s concerns and said, “We need to know how we got some of those scores up.” He added, “As far as the Individualized Graduation Plans, we need to do something about that.”

Zimmer pointed out that the district had laid off academic counselors in the past that were supposed to be helping students achieve success in graduating and steer them toward college. He said he fears that not enough academic counselors are graduating from local universities, and the district will suffer.

“We cut so much during the recession in non-roster classroom positions,” Zimmer said. “I know well that USC is only now restarting their counselor education program and we are two to three years out to getting those counselors.”

Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson said the district is working with Title 1 money to help schools that need extra resources. She said the district is also encouraging students to consider a counseling career.

In an interview, Gipson said, “What we’re doing puts a whole new perspective on what credit recovery is.”

She said the district is creating more pathways to accelerate student graduation and encouraging dual enrollment with community colleges. They are also working closely with USC, UCLA, Cal State and schools to share resources and produce the best graduates.

As far as the D grades, Gipson said, “a D-grade is not the goal. The goal is 100 percent graduation and high grades for all students. We will be increasing the rigor and calibrating the work we do in the system.”

Gipson said they want to encourage college-bound students from the early level of schooling. “You can imagine we’re pretty excited about what we’re doing and what can happen in every single grade level.”

She added, “The entire LAUSD family knows it starts in preschool. And we’re mapping those opportunities not just for the seniors who are getting ready to go to community college, but doing some design planning that takes them from preschool and graduation to high school and beyond.”

LAUSD vs. state on CAASPP tests

Three quarters of LA Unified students who took the new statewide Common Core-aligned tests for math and two-thirds of students who took the tests for English failed to meet state standards, according to data released today by the California Department of Education.

The scores on the new California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance (CAASPP) reflect results from more than 267,000 students in traditional district schools and the district’s 53 affiliated charter schools. They do not include scores from students who attend the 221 independent charters within LA Unified — those scores were not immediately available as an overall score, only individually by school.

Overall, 3.2 million students took the tests statewide.

LA Unified officials were quick to downplay the significance of the results, saying the overall performance is comparable to results from the old Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, program, which was last given in 2013. California has been without statewide testing for two years.

“I think we still see the achievement gaps that we had in the old test,” said Cynthia Lim, LA Unified’s executive director of the office of Data and Accountability, in a phone call with reporters. “I don’t think that the achievement gaps went away because we have a new test. I think we see the same patterns that we had in the past.”

The district cited a comparison to 11 other large urban districts in the state, showing that LA Unified scored in the middle of the pack and fared better than on a statewide comparison. Among the other districts, including San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Oakland, LA Unified scored ahead of four in English language arts and ahead of five in math.

“How we compare to other districts today and how we compared in the past, I think we see a similar pattern in terms of our performance,” said LA Unified Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King.

However, King also sought to downplay any comparison to past tests. When asked what the district will say to a parent angry about their child’s or school’s performance, she said she would tell them that “it is baseline data, that it is not comparable data to tests that they have taken in the past and also showing them the plans for their specific school and how we are going to work with their youngster in the school,” King said.

In a statement, LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines also downplayed any significance that could be attached to the test results.

“This is not a time to be pleased or displeased with the results, as these assessments provide a roadmap for how we can better prepare our students for college or the workforce,” he said. “Each of our local districts will be analyzing these results so that we can strategically provide support to individual school sites.”

The state gave practice tests last year, but the results were not publicly released, making today’s numbers the first temperature-taking of students on a statewide basis that can be used for comparative purposes in the years ahead. The results are available by state, district or direct funded charter school on the Department of Education website, and the state will eventually devise a new accountability system based on the CAASPP.

Test results for independent charters is available school by school, but the district and the California Charters Schools Association both said they were still crunching the numbers to provide an overall score for independent charters.

The new tests — known as Smarter Balanced Assessments —  differed from the previous paper-and-pencil tests in that they were given on desktop computers, laptops and tablets. And in replacing multiple-choice choice questions, Smarter Balanced questions were designed to show how well students could write, analyze and solve real-world problems.

The new tests were also computer adaptive, which means that a correct answer on one question would produce a more challenging question while a wrong answer led to an easier question. As a result, students in the same class often got different questions.

The tests were given to students in grades 3 through 8 and 11, and the results placed them in one of four categories: standard exceeded, standard met, standard nearly met and standard not met.

On English skills, 41 percent of LA Unified students did not meet the standard, 26 nearly met, 23 percent met and 10 percent exceeded the standards. The numbers were well below the statewide average, which saw 31 not meeting the standard, 25 nearly met, 28 met and 16 exceeding the standard.

Results from grades 3 and 4 were the worst, with 71 percent of students in each grade failing to meet the state standard.

On math skills, 47 percent of LA Unified students did not meet the standard, 28 percent nearly met, 16 percent met and 9 percent exceeded the standard. Statewide, 28 percent did not meet the standard, 29 percent nearly met, 19 met and 14 percent exceeded the standard.

Grade 11 students fared the worst in math, with a full 80 percent failing to meet the state standard.

Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Ruth Perez pointed to the district’s large number of poverty and English learners as a top reason for the district’s below average performance.

“I think we find above all our poverty is definitely still an issue for the performance of our students, and the acquiring of a second language, our English language learners… but the gap between our [English language learners] and our non-English language learners is still there,” Perez said.

However, when compared with the statewide average, LA Unified still trailed in those two categories. Eighty-two percent of the district’s English learners did not meet the standards in English and 79 percent did not meet the standard in math, compared with a 65 percent statewide average of English learner students who did not meet the standard in both English and math. The districts’ economically disadvantaged students fared better when compared to the statewide average, but still scored lower.

LA Unified officials, as well as the state Department of Education, have repeatedly used the word “baseline” when referring to this year’s results and stressed that the public should not draw too many conclusions from them. Over the last few months, state and local education leaders stressed that the tests are aligned with the new Common Core standards, which districts and educators are still learning themselves how to teach. They also pointed that the test is new and it was the first time it was administered statewide online, which presented new and unique challenges.

“The results show our starting point as a state, a window into where California students are in meeting tougher academic standards that emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, and analytical writing,” California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, said in a statement. “California’s new standards and tests are challenging for schools to teach and for students to learn, so I am encouraged that many students are at or near achievement standards. However, just as we expected, many students need to make more progress. Our job is to support students, teachers, and schools as they do.”

United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl — who has frequently clashed with district leaders over the last year — also downplayed the significance of the new test results in a rare example of agreement with district leaders.

“It’s not unusual when you move from one testing regime to another, it takes a while for the system and the students to get used to that test. I’m not surprised by (low scores),” he said on KABC over the weekend before the results were released but in reference to being asked about the anticipation that the scores will be low.

Aside from data per district and school, parents and guardians of students in the state will be receiving individual reports on their child’s scores. King said the district will use the data to work with individual schools and teachers that need better professional development to improve scores.

“We have already begun that process of messaging and working with families around expectations for the results, what the results mean, helping to inform and and give them information about the assessments,” King said.

Cynthia Lim, executive director of the district’s Office of Data and Accountability, said she knows parents will make comparisons between the previous California Standards Tests and the new tests. That would be unfair, she said, describing it as worse than an apples-and-oranges comparison.

“Students are being measured in different ways than in the past tests, and there were five different performance bands; now there are four,” Lim told the LA School Report. The five “Far Below Basic,” “Below Basic,” “Basic,” “Proficient” and “Advanced” — are now “Has Not Met the Standard,” “Nearly Met the Standard,” “Met the Standard” and “Exceeded the Standard.”

Lim said she has seen preliminary scores for LAUSD — about 96 percent of the scores in grades 3 through 8 and 84 percent of the test scores in 11th grade — and they are not great. She declined to provide details but admitted that the scores would be “lower than what we’ve seen in the past in terms of what we would say is proficiency.”

The way the students are taking the tests could hurt the initial scores, too. All the tests are conducted on tablets, with no paper and pencil, no bubbles to fill in, no multiple guess. And, no student gets the same questions.

“In the past, every student had the same set of questions in a one-answer format,” Lim said. “So you got a question and possible range of answers and the student had to eliminate answers. On this new assessment, there are graphics, and the types of answers aren’t given to the students; they have to take it a step beyond, and show how they came up with the computation.”

The skills include writing on the tablet, typing in answers and sometimes listening on headphones before answering questions.

It’s also the first time the district tried a “computer adaptative” test. If the student gets questions correct, the questions get tougher. If they miss them, the questions get easier. “The questions are tailored to your ability, and we get more precise information about achievements and what the students need to work on,” Lim said.

The overall impact of the new metrics, Lim said, makes it less likely that instructors will teach-to-the-test — a common complaint of teachers — because of how the questions are asked, forcing students to concentrate on demonstrating a better understanding of what they are learning rather than rote recitation. That’s the essential change ushered in by the use of the Common Core State Standards as an instruction guideline.

The new tests not only help lower-performing students but help better identify highly-gifted students, as well. If more than two-thirds of the questions are answered correctly, the questions automatically go into a higher grade level. “That will give a better idea of the potential of the student, and the teacher can adjust accordingly,” Lim said.

Another reason the scores can’t be compared with the past regimen is because all students 2 through 11th grades were tested, while now only children in grades 3 through 8 and 11th graders are tested.

Schools went through a test-run two years ago and resolved problems with tablets not working properly. But all schools took the test in the last 12 weeks of this past school year, and those testing scores will now provide a baseline for the future.

The reports of the test scores sent to parents will have detailed explanations of where a child needs improvement, with more specifics than ever provided in the past. The inter-office memo showed examples, with a fictional student, Emily, as Below Standard for “Demonstrating ability to support mathematical conclusions” and At-or-Near Standard for “Demonstrating understanding of literary and non-fiction texts.”

“Teachers can use this information to adjust their teaching because the scores are broken into these sub-categories,” Lim said.

Teachers and principals can also ask students to take interim tests.

Meanwhile, the sample letters urge parents not to compare these test scores to past ones. An example reads: “These results are one measure of Emily’s academic performance and provide limited information. Like any important measure of your child’s performance, they should be viewed with other available information—such as classroom tests, assignments, and grades—and they may be used to help guide a conversation with Emily’s teacher.”

Cynthia Lim, Executive Director of the Office of Data and Accountability, told the LA School Report today that parents should not worry when the see the results fro last year because the new tests are not comparable to previous statewide measures in how they are structured and how they are given — by computer.

Her explanation was part of a district strategy to ease anxieties among parents who may be fearful that the new tests leave the impression that their children are regressing in their academic pursuits. That is not the case, Lim said. It has always been clear to school administrators here and elsewhere that a new form of testing, based on the Common Core State Standards, would drive down test results in the early years.

“We are expecting that scores will be lower than what we’ve seen in the past in terms of what we would say is proficiency, because the tests are really different than what we’ve had for the last 10 years,” Lim said.

Not only are the new tests different in how they pose questions, the new scoring system is tougher, but Lim said the test material isn’t necessarily more difficult for students or any more advanced.

“It is a different way of teaching; the material is not harder, we are assessing deeper levels of thinking among students,” she explained. Rather than multiple choice questions or basic recall questions, the students are asked to explain how they got to an answer.

Lim sent a letter to the school board and Superintendent Ramon Cortines last week, warning against comparisons between the old test scores and the new ones. She noted: “The percentage of students who will have ‘met or exceeded standards’ on the new tests will be lower than the proficiency rates we have seen with the old California Standards Tests.”

Lim said, “There’s no way to compare the test scores. So even if you were advanced on (the California Standards Test) and this year you’re ‘Nearly Meeting Standards,’ it doesn’t mean that you’ve gotten dumber. We are assessing different skills. It’s new to teachers and new to students in terms of how we’re assessing. I think as people get more familiar, scores will most likely increase.”

The scores this year will not be used to determine if schools are “failing” nor will they be used for the evaluation of teachers, Lim said.

The district is not concerned with the lower scores for now. A decade ago when the tests were changed, they saw a similar drop in scores. This time, the tests are taken completely on computer tablets — some questions require listening, others include writing exercises. They are also subject to “computer adaptability,” which means an incorrect answer is followed by an easier question, a correct answer leads to a harder question.

District officials say they are especially concerned that parents may react negatively to a perception that their child is not scoring well on the new test. “We worked with our local district on our talking points because it does not mean our kids are getting dumber,” Lim said. “It means that we’re assessing them in a different way than we ever have before. It’s actually a more holistic view of students and how they learn.”

The actual scores by school, district, county and state will be released by the state and available to the public in mid-September. The state is a few weeks behind in releasing the scores, Lim said.