Court Rejects Plea to Release Complete School Test Scores

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a state request to allow the public to immediately see complete school-by-school scores on a series of basic skills tests, including results for students who are not fluent in English.

The ruling means the complete scores will probably stay under wraps at least until a hearing scheduled in San Francisco Superior Court next week.

Last month, the lower court blocked the state from releasing results for students with limited English skills.

The temporary restraining order was granted after the Oakland and Berkeley school systems joined a lawsuit complaining that the all-English Stanford 9 exams discriminated against those students and that the release of the scores would violate laws guaranteeing equal educational opportunity.

The state had sought to lift the restraining order, but the state Supreme Court declined to do so.

Despite the order, individual school districts remain free to release whatever scores they wish. Many have already released complete results on how their schools fared in reading, math, written expression, spelling, science and social sciences.

Doug Stone, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the state still hopes to be able to release the full scores after next week’s hearing.

Last week, the state released an analysis of statewide results based only on scores of English-fluent students, who made up about 80% of the 4.1 million test takers. Originally, the state had planned to post scores for 1,000 school districts and 8,000 schools on the Internet on June 30.