Re: “El Marino Champ Again – Arnold Weighs Test Scores”
“Even if you didn’t know anything about Culver City schools,” a mother of three students was saying, “when the state test scores were released last week, you could see that El Marino has reasserted itself as the No. 1 school in the District.
“By a wide margin.”
None of her children is enrolled at El Marino Language School, but the deeply involved mother was grinning with pride.
Active in PTA circles since her eldest walked into a classroom nine summers ago, the busy mother was puzzled.
“I do not understand why our other schools have not tried to copy the El Marino model,” she said. “We have a school in our district that consistently excels in academics, and people stand there with their arms at their sides.
“Do they think this is an accident that occurs every year?”
Vexed and frustrated, she characterized the El Marino model in uncomplicated terms:
“Get all the smart kids you can into the school.”
At El Marino, 81 percent met or exceeded state standards in math, 80 percent in English. Only Farragut Elementary was in the same time zone, 74 percent in math, 75 percent in English.
All other campuses were far down the list.
How and why does El Marino retain its clear dominance?
“El Marino parents are more involved with the school than parents at other schools,” she said.
“They have to be more involved – or they will be asked to leave.”
(To be continued)
Where do I begin to respond to this kind of article?
I am vexed and frustrated too.
I have been involved with language immersion programs locally and nationally since 1978. I spearheaded the organization of Advocates for Language Learning nationally and locally. The local group named ALLEM, Advocates for Language Learning El Marino and I organized the Exchange Program with Guadalajara in 1984.
First El Marino does not admit all the smartest students in the District. It is done on a lottery and a percentage of the students who enter are second language learners. Secondly, if you take the time before making rash calls to do some research, you will find that children in language immersion and dual language programs do benefit from being exposed to a second language at an early age. It does change their cognitive thinking and learning skills.
Researchers across the Country are finding that students in dual language programs across the Country are doing better than some of their peers who are studying in a single language.
This is not unique to El Marino.
Yes and research also shows that parent involvement does make a difference in a child’s success in school. That is why parent involvement is strongly advised in every school. There is definitely strong parent involvement District wide.
However to say, that if a parent is not involved at El Marino: they are asked to leave is absolutely dead wrong.
I would be remiss not to add this comment.
Remember that standardized test scores are not the only measurement to evaluate a child’s capabilities.
There is much more to look at when evaluating a student’s progress.
Seriously?
Are we still giving anonymous people a voice? And spreading inaccurate information?
Ari Noonan, did you call the school to find out if parents can be asked to leave if they don’t volunteer?
A simple Google search would have turned out this article: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article8574137.html
Here’s the quote from our State Superintendent: “We encourage parents to volunteer at their schools, but we want to make it very clear that no school can require parents to volunteer in order for a student to enroll in school or participate in an educational activity.
El Marino is a great school! Everyone associated with the El Marino community should be very proud of the school’s great achievements– qualitative, and quantitative.
The above having been said, a few points of caution to those eager to compare El Marino’s test scores to those of other CCUSD schools:
a) El Marino’s parent community is– by its nature– a self-selecting one: you pretty much have to be a relatively-active, involved parent just to bother pursuing the EM lottery/admissions process (as opposed to simply accepting default placement in your own neighborhood school).
b) El Marino parents are wealthier than those of any other school in the district (just 14.5% of EM’s families are listed as Economically Disadvantaged, compared to 38.7% for district at large)
c) El Marino’s parents are better-educated than those of any other school in the district (53.8% of EM families report attending at least some graduate school, compared to 27.2% for the district at large)
d) El Marino kids have fewer physical or cognitive impairments than any other school in the district (3.9% of EM kids report as Disabled, compared to 8.9% for the district at large)
So the answer to your anonymous correspondent’s question (“Do they think this is an accident that occurs every year?”) is: no. It’s not an accident. The El Marino community works very hard to excel, and the school enjoys the advantage of a self-selecting parent base that is wealthier and better-educated than that of any other school in the district, and whose children contend with fewer disabilities than those of any other school in the district.
Alas, there’s simply no magic formula that any of the other CCUSD schools can conjure in order to emulate the above. It’s just simple demographics.
All of *that* having been said, I should point out that the CCUSD school which tallied the greatest year-to-year CAASPP score improvement in 2016 (expressed either in raw numbers, or as a percentage of its prior score) was not El Marino. As a raw number, the district school which tallied the greatest CAASPP score improvement was Farragut. Then Linwood E Howe. *Then* El Marino. As a percentage of its prior-year score, the most improved CCUSD school was Linwood E Howe. Then Farragut. Then El Rincon. *Then* El Marino, with La Ballona just a hundredth of a percentage point behind.
All of which is to point out that this particular declaration from your anonymous correspondent is the biggest and most insulting lie of all: “We have a school in our district that consistently excels in academics, and people stand there with their arms at their sides.“ There is *no* CCUSD school in which the students, teachers, staff and parents are simply “standing there with their arms at their sides”. All across this town, we’re all pitching in, busting our respective asses to create an incredible school experience for our kids, with achievement levels that outstrip those averaged by the vast preponderance of public schools in our county and state.
So yes, absolutely, the El Marino community should be extremely proud. And so should the community of every other CCUSD campus.
Disclosure: I happen to be the Board President of the Linwood E Howe Boosters, and witness every day, first-hand, the polar opposite of a school community which stands idly by with its arms at its side.