Students across the state are rising to the accountability
challenges from the state and federal government, according to
state test results released Friday.
Public school students have shown improvement for five straight
years on the state’s assessment test, STAR
– the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program, in its fifth
year.
Students across the state are rising to the accountability challenges from the state and federal government, according to state test results released Friday.
Public school students have shown improvement for five straight years on the state’s assessment test, STAR – the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program, in its fifth year.
However, San Benito County schools were below the state rankings in almost all categories in all grade levels. Ninth, 10th and 11th graders did better compared to the state than the county’s younger students based on the CAT/6 assessment. The CAT/6 measures how California students are doing in relation to students of the same grade level nationwide.
This year, the nationally norm-referenced test replaced the SAT/9, making a comparison of this year’s scores to last year’s similar to comparing apples to oranges, educators said.
“The CAT/6 keeps us honest with the rest of the nation,” said Jean Burns Slater, superintendent of the San Benito High School District. “I would like to see us at two-thirds (at the 66th percentile).”
SBHS students did better than the state in every category and every grade level. Even with student scores improving, Slater said they are not where they should be.
“We are not producing to our potential. Our (county) income has risen quickly. We haven’t quite caught up yet,” she said, referring to San Benito County having the 12th highest median income in the state.
Anzar High School is one school that did well on the CAT/6, Superintendent Jackie Munoz noticed.
“Anzar did one heck of a job with reading, math and science,” Munoz said. She attributed the increases to intervention programs focusing on reading.
Another trend that stood out was the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District’s numbers in the various percentiles. CAT/6 scores are separated into the percent scoring at or above the 75th, 50th and 25th percentile. The district has more students at or above the 75th percentile and less below the 25th percentile, Munoz said.
While most schools would like to see scores at least in the 50th percentile on the CAT/6, educators also take stock in the California Standards Test (CST), a second part of the STAR results. As opposed to the national focus of the CAT/6, the CST assesses how well students are doing when tested on the state’s content standards.
“The CST is testing what we’re teaching,” Slater said.
The CST breaks scores into five groups – advanced, proficient, basic, below basic and far below basic.
Slater said she wants to see all students in the top three categories. SBHS’s math scores were down, in part because the school focused more on reading and writing last year, Slater said.
“Math, I’m not pleased with. We need some support in here (in the below basic and far below basic categories). The math department definitely needs some support,” Slater said.
Students in the Hollister School District did worse than the state in all but one of the categories for the various grade levels. Scores ranged between the 20th and 40th national percentiles.
Administrators from the county office of education and the HSD could not be reached for comment.
More than 4.5 million students took the test in California, with 8,600 in the county. Student scores on the STAR are used to determine an statewide Academic Performance Index for schools and an Adequate Yearly Progress report for the federal government. Both the API and AYP are ways to hold schools accountable and to make sure every student is achieving.
For more information or to view the STAR results, visit www.cde.ca.gov.
