EDITORIAL

When schools do well, everyone should be proud.

Those over at the Newport-Mesa Unified School District sure are, and

they should be. While there’s always room for improvement at any school,

and we admit we never hesitate to point that out, officials are boasting

about the improvement seen in the Stanford 9 achievement test results.

The exams, which were first given in 1997, test students in second

through eighth grade on reading, language, math and spelling, and

students in ninth through 11th grade on history, math, reading, science

and writing.

At Newport-Mesa, elementary students in second through fifth grade

showed improvement in each of the four areas. Meanwhile, students in

sixth through 11th grade improved in most areas.

District officials said they are pleased to see a slow, yet continued

growth over the test’s four years.

Specifically, schools on Costa Mesa’s Westside, where many of the

children either don’t speak English or speak it minimally, have shown

what Superintendent Robert Barbot defined as “phenomenal” two-digit

gains. Nine of the 11 schools that recorded two-digit gains are in Costa

Mesa -- another area where we have pointed out in the past that the

district seemed to be lagging.

So we wanted to take this opportunity to praise instead of criticize.

Every gain helps and continued gains throughout the schools show the

district has analyzed past test results and followed up to improve upon

them.

That’s all that we can hope for, that the district will not be mired

in past failures and instead seeks to find answers to perplexing and

sometimes overwhelming problems.

It’s a difficult challenge. It isn’t easy to teach tomorrow’s minds,

but Newport-Mesa is proving that there are answers out there. We look

forward to next year’s results. Keep up the good work.