These are HORRIBLE numbers. Sure, you are better than the dismal national average, but how hard is that apparently. These numbers, read another way, show that 40% of our kids are BELOW the average for English ability, and 46% are BELOW the average for Math standards. Seriously?!

And then later you are going to chastise companies for using H1B visas to get talent.

Let's take that assessment money ($275K) that the board so irresponsibly approved to go into further analysis paralysis and spend it on the kids!!! The parents and teachers can give FREE advise AGAIN on what's causing..."performance problems the schools, and the district office, have that are holding back student achievement."

@Ron,

Understood.

But the tests are new (teachers really hadn't even seen them before), online testing was new (kids hadn't done much of this before), and the standards tested are new.

Really need to track improvement over time. That's why the State Superintendent of Education advises this is a benchmark. And it's just one measure taken on one day. But I'm sure the districts will work hard to improve (while likely being accused of "teaching to the test.")

We are a community with many educated and talented people. Is there a way for those of us wth good English and math skills to volunteer to help the kids who need to catch up? Teachers are often spread thin and many parents work long hours. Perhaps this is a good opportunity for community building along with raising some grades and lowering some kids' test stress

It's much harder to "teach to the test" when students have to include in their answer just how they got there. This is one of the features of Common Core.

Just as much as the district needs to offer ongoing professional development to teachers to adapt to the new standards and skills to teach, we have to work on kids getting used to online test taking and adaptive tests. The fill-in-the-bubble days are almost gone and, for those without regular access to technology, these new tests present extra challenges for the district and its students. It's interesting information that they released, but certainly only a baseline and a start for feedback.

I'm not sure about that leap Ron of Waverly Park makes as there's been an awful lot of discussion and examples of companies using H1B visa employees as a cheaper option even though the talent is already here. Regardless, I don't think every MVWSD or MVLA student is interested in going into tech so it's not even that relevant.

Like this income- and language-based inequality is a surprise? My sister is a grade school teacher in a Midwestern coal mining town with very poorly educated Anglo parents, and she says that the schools only can go so far to correct for lack of parental education and support at home. She says that many of their students are so poorly educated and treated at home that they are"ruined" by the time they get to Kindergarten. The teachers say "It all begins and ends at home."

@Ron

"46% are BELOW the average for Math standards"

Stop and think for a second what the definition of "average" is. Lacking math skills indeed.

Don't blame the school or the teachers. Parents need to be making sure their kids do their homework and understand it.

@Steve: This is not a hostile response but rather a friendly one because you have spoken the politically-incorrect truth that most of our educators and school board members don't dare say, even though they know it's true.

Education begins at from birth and not when the kids finally get to public schools at age 5. So, the impossible political question is --- how do we force poorly educated and abusive parents to prepare their children to be successful in public school? Does government have the right to step into ignorant and abusive families and take their children from them just to save their children from lives of poverty, crime, and unemployable ignorance?

I think this is a little overblown. All the students I have met in Mountain View schools are great kids. None of them are "ruined" or destined for lives of poverty and crime because they didn't do well on a standardized test.

I'm sad to admit I think the district actually did better than I expected. However those are averages. A quick look at the data shows some of our schools did great, while others did pretty bad. It's pretty sad to see a district with such extremes on both ends. Is this common in California? I expected differences between districts, but I didn't expect so much variation within a district. Pretty sad we haven't found a way to plan our schools to be more equal. I think it hurts all our kids.

I've been working with students at the school (as a reading/lit volunteer) for 13 yrs. As someone else pointed else, it doesn't matter how many volunteer hours or dollars you throw at the underperforming schools and students, unless they do the work at home (parents who support and value education, enough room/quiet place to study), nothing is going to change.
Many people do no understand the situations some of these students face at home with multiple families living under one roof (no room/quiet space to study), stressful situations where the parents are stressed about putting food on the table and making rent, having to take care of younger siblings). The answer is multifold and will take generations of lifting families out of poverty and teaching them the importance of educating their young.

The two neighboring school districts, who pay at least $750 a parcel in taxes, had numbers at least 20% better than MVWSD. That money pays for 20 per class in lower grades, more aides, and more intervention. We have no one to blame but ourselves when we are putting 28 kids in kindergarten classes.

We need to pay more to get more. The new parcel tax should be at least $400, not a paltry $200. I would happily pay $600 per year to have better quality schools.

The neighboring districts you speak of (assuming LA and PA and not Sunnyvale) do not have NEARLY the amount of ESL students. You can't buy that away. Not for all the parcel taxes you can throw at it.
If you take the ESL kids out of the equation, I bet we see things much more evenly across the immediately neighboring districts.
The fact that MV can put up those numbers even with the ESL population shows how fantastic the schools are. Don't get hung up on the numbers. A kid at Bubb or Huff is getting no less an education that a kid a Springer or Loyola, and IMO they get a better sense of community and diversification.

I'm not sure I'm following or understanding a lot of the comments here. While I agree with the idea that reinforcement begins at home I disagree that parents should be so involved in education. Why are we sending our kids to school then? Shouldn't they be learning THERE? (if they're not then I should be homeschooling). I'm not an educator, I'm a PARENT. I have enough other things to juggle that are just as important; playdates for social interaction, sports for physical activity, piano for music exposure. Not to mention dinner for sustenance, baths for cleanliness, reading/bedtime for sanity. And now I need to be teaching at home as well? I am finding it increasingly difficult to also now be the one sitting for approx 1 hour/night (grade school children) going over homework i.e. things they should have learned in class, and these overblown over-the-top projects that are mostly done by parents while their kids sit by and watch.

What's the answer? I don't have one. I think there are going to be kids that do well and kids that don't. Teachers that are awesome and who encourage kids from all socio-economic backgrounds to excel and teachers that just promote kids to the next level. So where does that leave us?

"So, the impossible political question is --- how do we force poorly educated and abusive parents to prepare their children to be successful in public school? "

Nobody needs to be forced. Just educated that education is the key to success. Visit a Kumon class and you'll see people who understand that.

"I have enough other things to juggle that are just as important; playdates for social interaction, sports for physical activity, piano for music exposure. Not to mention dinner for sustenance, baths for cleanliness,"

I'll venture a guess that your kids are not struggling in school. In any case, kids without playdates, sports, piano, gourmet food and even baths will do just fine. Kids without education will struggle.

The point I was trying to make is that I agree parents should be encouraging of education but we shouldn't be responsible for it. If it's not being supported and encouraged at home, how much more responsibility can you expect the schools to take on? They're not allowed to discipline yet are expected to turn out "high" test scores. What's the answer?

@Steve: Seriously? Did you just insult my math skills by demonstrating NONE of your own. The AVERAGE, Steve, does NOT mean that half are above and half are below. THAT would be the median. 46% below average IS miserable. Let me give you an example. If 5 kids had tests scores out of 10 that were 7,7,7,6 and 7, the average score would be 6.8, with 20% of the kids below average and 80% above average. If 5 kids had scores of 6,7,7,7 and 8, the average would be 7 with 20% below average and 20% above average.

Being happy that around half the kids are below average suggests a HUGE bell curve where mediocrity is celebrated as a huge victory, and half of our kids cannot even achieve that.

Math skills indeed. I hope you are not a teacher responding to the article.

Average vs. median LOL

Thanks Ron. You beat me to it.

Mean and Median are both types of averages. In a Normal distribution--they have the same value numerically.

So some of the comments are saying that is typical to find a non-normal distribution in the performance of individual kids. This really indicates other factors--cross variables--at play. In the case of MVWSD ELL status is not the big factor, but rather low socioeconomic status. As the article states, the achievement gap is what is shown clearly by the scores as reported.

The state data allows you to take any individual school and look at the score average (mean) for with and without socio-economic disadvantage. Too bad the article didn't do that. A lot of the comments here relate to that variable, but they don't seem to realize that the scores are reported both ways regarding that variable, as well as in the overall case.

@Ron

For a normal distribution the average is the median.

[Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language] . The article states that 54% met or exceeded the *standard*. It doesn't say that 54% exceeded that average or median - [Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language].

Someone expressed interest in taking a look at the detailed test results. I have downloaded them from the state website, and done my best to convert them into a useful format. This file contains all the results for all student subgroups at all public schools in Santa Clara County.

For the foreseeable future, the resulting Excel spreadsheet will be available here: Web Link

If you have feedback on this spreadsheet, or ideas for improving on it, please email them to me at gcoladonato@mvwsd.org.