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Venerable Beverly Near Riot At BHHS Girls’ Basketball • • • briefssecurity guard to retire Page 4 rudyBH Amnesty cole Meet Page 6 sportsTeam Edged in Quarterfinals Page 8 ALSO ON THE WEB Beverly Hills www.bhweekly.com WeeklySERVING BEVERLY HILLS • BEVERLYWOOD • LOS ANGELES Issue 439 • February 28 - March 5, 2008 3-23-2 BoardBoard splitsplit airedaired atat recentrecent meetingsmeetings NewNew BoardBoard ofof EducationEducation membersmembers disagreedisagree withwith incumbentsincumbents overover fundingfunding andand prioritiespriorities cover story • page 9 Bushee to speak up for teachers and People BHHS Girls’ Basketball Team • • • briefsstudents regarding impending budget cuts Page 5 rudyin the News cole Page 6 sportsWins First Playoff Games Since 1978 Page 8 lying skills, memorizing vocabulary and you that student performance on graded ALSO ON THE WEB Beverly Hills www.bhweekly.com learning strategies can only help so much. activities (in other words, activities on Besides, the same strategies that students which they have a stake in the outcome) is a use to succeed on the SAT could in most far more reliable indicator of the best per- WeeklySERVING BEVERLY HILLS • BEVERLYWOOD • LOS ANGELES letters Issue 438 • February 21 - February 27, 2008 cases be applied to the CST. Yet some stu- formance of which a student is capable than dents who have performed well on the SAT ungraded activities are. Let California do Update from the Parks have not performed well on the CST. If stu- what some other states do, and require CST email dent motivation were not a factor, and if test results to be posted to student transcripts, performance is as largely influenced by out- rather than forbidding the posting of scores, & side prep courses as Mr. Spitz seems to as current law does, and then the CST “Adding It Up” [Issue 434] think, such discrepancies should not exist. would suddenly become a much more reli- At the risk of being accused of being a Why do students take SAT prep courses? able measure, at least for the subjects tested. “space hog” in this newspaper, I do feel the Because they actually care about the SAT, (And I would predict very large score need to respond to Mr. Spitz’ response to and we are back to my original point: what increases in our district!) Until then, look- my letter in [issue 438]. TheThe Weekly’sWeekly’s exclusiveexclusive interviewinterview withwith sense does it make to measure students in a ing exclusively at CST data is not a very Recreation and Parks Commission Chair I agree with Mr. Spitz up to a point in his Recreation and Parks Commission Chair situation inLADEZIGN which AD-5x3.pdfthe students 12/7/07 do not 3:23:01care PMaccurate way to measure school perform- MichaelMichael Blumenfeld observation about SAT scores: there are about their results? Any teacher will tell ance. cover story • page 10 reliability issues because not everyone takes the SAT. However, I wasn’t advocating WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? ranking schools exclusively using SAT data, or for that matter ranking schools at all, You can write us at: merely pointing out that we need to look 140 South Beverly Drive #201 beyond any one measure in considering theC Beverly Hills, CA 90212 quality of our program. It might be possi-M ble to compensate for variations in partici- You can fax us at: pation rates, as Dataquest does with APY 310.887.0789 scores, by using a formula that takes intoCM consideration both scores and participationMY email us at: rates. As far as students taking outside [email protected] CY preparation courses, yes, of course they do—as I am sure they do at the otherCMY schools on the list, most of whom are also inK reasonably affluent communities. However, attributing a student’s entire SAT test performance to such courses consider- SNAPSHOT ably overstates the case. Without the under- WeeklyBeverly Hills Issue 439 • February 28 - March 5, 2008 Beverly Hills Weekly Inc. Founded: October 7, 1999 Published Thursdays Delivered in Beverly HilIs, Beverlywood, Los Angeles ISSN#1528-851X www.bhweekly.com 1 year Publisher & CEO Josh E. Gross subscriptions Reporter are available. Lauren Gabbaian Sent via US Mail Sports Editor $75 payable in Steven Herbert advance Contributing Editor Rudy Cole Adjudicated as a General Manager newspaper of general Rebecca Rihani circulation for the County of Los Angeles. Case # Advertising Representatives BS065841 of the Los Nicole Adasha Angeles Superior Court, Caroline Hakimfar Patricia Massachi on November 30, 2000. Legal Advertising Michael Saghian 140 South Beverly Drive #201 “COUNTING” ON A WIN Beverly Hills, CA 90212 310.887.0788 phone REDONDO BEACH 310.887.0789 fax CNPA Member A team of four students from Beverly Vista took fifth place at this weekend’s MATHCOUNTS Competition in Redondo Beach, thus advanc- [email protected] ing them to the state competition on March 15. The competition was attended by 32 schools in the Southland, including Beverly Vista and All staff can be reached at: first name @bhweekly.com Hawthorne. Beverly Vista sent eight total students to the event, of which four competed as a team and four as individuals. This is the first Unsolicited materials will not be returned. year since 1994 that the school has advanced to the state level in the team competition. ©2008 Beverly Hills Weekly Inc. The qualifying team, pictured above (L-R), is comprised of Advisor Mark Frenn, Jason Lee, Victoria Chen, Andrew Schwab and Jake Freud. Not pictured are Donya Enayati, George Qiao, Hyuk Yu and Aaron Zakhor. Page 2 • Beverly Hills Weekly When STAR testing first began, there was readily switch to the SAT-9 for placement in other schools perform better on the CST that would create a conflict of interest that a one year overlap during which we admin- because its results diverged so widely from because their academic programs are supe- would cause him to be recused from voting istered the reading comprehension portion other indicators of student performance.) I rior. No one would deny that the schools in on the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel expan- of the ITBS test to juniors who had also believe the CST to be a better test than SAT- question are outstanding institutions, but sion. Residents have attended five council taken STAR testing. Considering that the 9 or ITBS for our purposes in that it is our exchanges in consortium meetings do meetings demanding that the Mayor answer Stanford 9 and the ITBS are both nationally geared to the specific state standards we not suggest that their programs and ours are questions that deserve a yes or no answer: normed tests, the results were shockingly use, and consequently we have used CST markedly different. Each school—Beverly different. Student average national ranking data for some placement purposes, but included—has some unique features the 1. Has the mayor or members of his fam- was at the 61st percentile (in other words, because we also use several other measures, others look at to see if any or all of them ily ever flown on a private airplane owned better than 61% of the students tested) on motivational issues still remain. For should be adopted more widely, but nothing or operated by the Beverly Hills Hilton SAT-9. It was at the 81st percentile on instance, I have noticed a number of stu- is these information exchanges so far sug- Hotel, the Hilton Corp. or by Beny Alagem ITBS—a whopping 20 point difference! dents over the years who have actually gests that Beverly is behind the others in or Mr. Alagem’s companies? 60% of students scored at post-high school passed the AP Language and Comp exam terms of curriculum and expectations. levels on SAT-9, while 69% scored the same but scored basic on the CST. Similarly, I Similarly, when we sent a team to San 2. Has the Mayor or any member of his way on ITBS—a smaller difference, but have encountered a fair number of students Marino to study their program, the team family received discounts, free services or still statistically significant. An alarming who didn’t qualify for AP or honors place- could find no significant differences other favored treatment from the Beverly 35% scored below grade level on SAT-9, ment in part because of very low CST between their program and ours that could Hills Hilton or its owners? while only 11% did on ITBS. Individual scores. Their invariable response when dis- account for the CST score difference student scores showed equally alarming dis- cussing the issue with me: “Oh, I didn’t between our two institutions. Surely if there At the City Council meeting on Feb. 19, crepancies. For example, one student had a take that seriously.” For some, this might were the kind of vast gulf Mr. Spitz seems the Mayor again refused to answer these grade level score of 7.9 on SAT-9, but 13.2 be a hollow excuse, but most proved their to think there is, one would expect to find simple questions and instead said that he on ITBS—more than three grade levels point by scoring advanced the following much more noticeable differences. had a “right of privacy.” However, there is below grade level, or two grade levels year. No doubt CST scores are accurate for Yes, we have some issues that need to be no right of privacy on public matters of pub- above! Quite a range! the majority of students, but inaccurate for a addressed. But addressing them properly lic concern. When Councilmember Krasne What caused the difference? At that point statistically significant minority, certainly a requires a full consideration of all evidence, also asked the Mayor to answer the ques- students knew the ITBS scores would affect large enough group to change our overall not the inherently limiting focus on one data tions, the Mayor again raised his “right of their class placement for the following year.