High School gets high ranking

By Amy Roberts

As Fresno State’s on-campus school for teens, University High School is proving itself to be a motivated and serious-minded neighbor.

Students choosing to attend this public charter niche school come to be challenged and prepped for college. Motivation is key to being accepted—no sports are offered, classes are considered hard and everyone must perform a form of music. Students coming into the school also must complete algebra prior to enrollment.

Seta Knnablian, 14, doesn’t talk about her high-school experience with friends she used to attend junior high with, saying it’s hard to explain why she’s taking Latin and physics as a freshman.

“ They just don’t understand why I’m taking these classes,” she says.

Taking tough classes paid off last week when the school received word that its students’ state test scores ranked them first in Fresno County’s schools in the national No Child Left Behind program.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a federal program designed to measure the success of state standardized testing. California schools administer testing usually over one week in the spring. Scores are compiled and counties receive an an Adequate Yearly Progress report for comparison with geographical areas. These scores show how well schools are meeting federal requirements.

University High School raised English test scores from 70.9 in 2002 to 90.2 for 2003. Similarily, Math scores from 2002 at 63.2 went up to 86.4 for this year.

Other high schools in the Fresno/Clovis area had test scores for this year ranging between 45.1 to 68.1 in math and 48.0 to 72.0 in English.

“ It’s kind of intimidating,” Knnablian says of the announcement. “Now we have a reputation of a high-standard school to keep up.”

Senior Rae Einerson,17, is the school’s student body president. She says the test scores accurately reflect the dedication students and the faculty put into school.

“ It’s definitely a lot tougher than at other schools,” Einerson says. “Even if I was taking AP classes, it wouldn’t be as rigorous as here.”

Dr. Brad Huff, principal of University High, says he wasn’t too surprised by the ranking. He attributes the scores to a variety of factors including a strong curriculum, advanced literacy, a two-year Latin requirement and an emphasis on either vocal or instrumental music during each year the student attends the school.

“ Our goal is to teach good, challenging courses and the testing takes care of itself,” Huff says. “We do not teach to the testing.”

While the sum of all courses is important, Huff says the music element is particularly beneficial based on research that shows how it stimulates more parts of the brain than any other activity.

Another class students take is Latin. Rarely taught in schools now, it plays a significant role in a student’s perception of language, according to Huff. He estimates about two-thirds of the English language has Latin roots. A person working in science-related fields uses more than that, he says.

Testing, Huff says, is also determining the level of a student’s vocabulary, so the more word roots a student knows, the higher their test scores.