California Has Used A National Achievement Test Called Stanford 9 Or SAT-9
California Standards-Based Tests Align With California Content Standards
Standard-Based Tests and the High School Exit Exam
How Are California Children Doing?
Accessing Test Results for Any California School Or District

STAR is the name of the state program that assesses individual student academic progress.  STAR stands for "Standardized Testing and Reporting."

Think of it from the state's point of view.  If you had raised academic standards, had given schools a billion dollars to buy textbooks to teach to those standards, and had given tens of thousands of dollars to train teachers about teaching to those standards, wouldn't you want to know whether children were actually learning more subject matter content?  Wouldn't you ask if more children were answering multiplication problems correctly, and if more children could comprehend the meaning of a paragraph they read and correctly answer questions about it?  

Wouldn’t you want to know how the children were doing on academic testing BEFORE you began these new educational measures and how they fared AFTER, from year to year TO SEE IF THERE WAS IMPROVEMENT?  You would want to know if money was well spent----as do our state officials.

California officials wanted to begin testing in the school year 1997-98, but no assessment yet existed that could test students about the grade level subject matter described in the December 1997 English/Language Arts and Math Content Standards.

So while tests on the content standards were being developed, California officials contracted with a national publisher to use a nationally normed, standardized achievement test to test all California school children.  State officials chose Harcourt Brace’s SAT-9 test (aka Stanford 9) and gave them a four year contract to test California children.  The first testing period was Spring 1998.  For more detailed information about the SAT-9, link here.

When the Math and Language Arts Content Standards were promulgated, no grade level tests existed that could test students' knowledge of the subject matter contained described in the Standards.  No assessment yet existed.  So the state set out to create such tests, and the tests are now available and in use.

Since the goal of the state is to have all children achieve competency in reading, writing and mathematics, state officials developed a test that is "criterion-referenced."  This means that the goal of the test is to tell students where they place with respect to set objectives, not how well they are doing in relation to the other students (like the SAT-9).  

The academic tests given by the State which align to state content standards require subject matter knowledge, and without increased academic knowledge and skills, children will not be able to improve their academic scores.  It is very doubtful that  "test prep" (practicing taking standardized tests) will raise academic test scores significantly over a period of time.

For example, if multiplication is being tested, then children need to learn multiplication, not how to take a standardized test.  While it is true that students need familiarity with test taking, and they need to be comfortable in a test taking environment, the huge gains made by early elementary school children in math and reading cannot be explained only by improved test taking skills.  As the results over a four year period indicate, California school children have greater knowledge of the subject matter being tested in math and language arts.

The Standards Based tests stIn this case, the set objectives are the grade level content standards.  This is significant because the Standards-Based tests do not test general knowledge of a subject.  They are very explicitly aligned to the Content Standards.

Depending on the number of correct answers, the students score is described as  Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic and Far Below Basic.

"Proficient" means that a child has mastered the grade level material and is ready to go on to the next grade level without remediation.  

"Basic" means that a child has some knowledge of the material but is not ready to go on to the next grade level without significant remediation.  "Below Basic" and "Far Below Basic" mean that a child is very far below grade level and should not go on to the next grade level without intensive remediation and intervention. 

Although the state has said that children who test at a Basic level or below need remediation and intervention before they begin the next grade level, the state has also told districts that they should use multiple assessments to evaluate student progress. This means that the state should look to more than one test. 

"Advanced" means that a child has exceptional mastery of grade level material.

State officials have been explicit about the connection between the High School Exit Exam and Standards-Based Tests.  If children test at a Proficient level on the Standards-Based Tests at all grade levels, they should have no problem passing the Exit Exam.

The Standards-Based tests are useful and significant because their results are a good indicator as to whether children are prepared for the Exit Exam.

There is no secret as to what is covered on the Standards-Based Tests.  The Standards-Based tests correspond directly to the 1997 Content Standards.  Blueprints for the Standards-Based Tests are on the California Department of Education website.  The Blueprints for each grade level describe which Content Standards correspond to a question on the test.  This means that teachers, parents and students have access to the content that will be tested at each grade level.  In general, the next grade level test will not test material that was taught in previous grades.

It should be emphasized that parents, teachers, students, principals, school boards and administrators all over California have the same access to key grade level standards and what's on the tests, because the state has taken great pains to make an abundance of information available on the California Department of Education website at http://www.cde.ca.gov .

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One of the main issues confronting the state is whether these new educational measures are increasing the academic knowledge of children and the answer appears to be "Yes."

The state website contains charts showing that there is a very significant increase in performance on academic testing in lower elementary school grades in both math and reading. 

The chart immediately below shows SAT-9 (Stanford 9) reading results over a four year period, from 1998 through 2001.

The most dramatic change is in grade two where now 51 % of all California second graders are above the 50^th percentile, whereas in 1998 only 40% of California second graders tested above the 50^th percentile.

The mathematics SAT-9 results are even more dramatic.  There are significant increases in grades two through six, and grades seven through twelve also showed increase.  

For example, in 1998 only 40% of third graders were at or above the 50^th percentile.  In 2001, 59% of third graders were at or above the 50ther percentile.  This is a huge increase of 19% more children above the 50th percentile in only a four year period.  

Cohort changes in math are also very significant.  Compare third graders in 1998 to the same cohort group of children in 2001 when they are sixth graders.  This group of children have increased their average percentile rankings by 18%.

The statistics below translate into thousands of school children with dramatically increased academic skills.

The language and spelling tests also show significant increases in academic performance over a four year period.

There has also been a very large increase in the average number correct on the California Standards Based Test.  The test was first given in 1999.

Accessing Test Results for Any California School

If you want to look at test results for any school or district, that information is easily available on the web.

There is a website called "great schools" at http://www.greatschools.net that provides a wealth of information about individual schools.  The site provides academic test results and it gives comparative data about schools in close proximity to one another in a very accessible format.

Ed-data is another site that provides information about  school profiles, and financial data  for every county, district and school in the state.  It is at http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/.  For academic test results visit DataQuest at http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/.

The California Department of Education website also contains a wealth of data.  Check out http://star.cde.ca.gov/ .