Currently, the California Standards Tests (CST), a part of the California STAR Testing Program, are on the minds of many students and teachers across the state. Every spring, second- through eleventh-graders prepare for and take the CST, which assess their knowledge of reading, writing, history, science and mathematics, according to the California Department of Education.
Taking the CST is not likely to be students’ favorite activity, so officials at Miguel Hidalgo Elementary School in Brawley treated them to a day of watery fun, the Imperial Valley Press reported. The outdoor event is organized every year to motivate students for the CST and celebrate their achievements from the previous year. Since its inception, the day of fun has become a part of the School’s culture.
This year, students were recognized for their academic performance at a morning ceremony, which was then followed by water activities in the playground. The pupils will take the CST over the course of six consecutive weeks beginning on May 7.
"We have big expectations for all of them," Celia Santana, Miguel Hidalgo’s principal, told the news outlet. "We made a lot of growth last year and we want to continue to meet our goals."
Since 1998, March 2 has been Read Across America Day, thanks to the National Education Association. In order to help students perform better on California STAR Testing Program assessments, the state will take things one step further with the establishment of Read Across California Month.
After students in California finish reading along with the rest of the country on March 2, they will take a pledge to continue reading 30 minutes for 30 days.
In 2009, roughly 54 percent of fourth-graders and 64 percent of eighth-graders who were tested scored at or above California’s basic reading level, according to the Nation’s Report Card. Unfortunately, these numbers are still below the averages for both grade levels across the country.
Furthermore, results from the 2010 California Standards Tests showed that 52 percent of students in grades two through eleven were considered to be proficient in English language arts.
However, supporters of Read Across California Month hope that this initiative will have a positive impact on the state’s literacy rate, while also fostering a greater interest in books among the state’s youth.
Most parents want their children to stay healthy by eating nutritious foods. There is even research that shows a connection between good eating habits and better academic performance.
For instance, a study of 5,200 fifth-graders and their parents, which appeared in a 2008 issue of the Journal of School Health, revealed that students who had low-quality diets were more likely to perform poorly in school.
In a recent San Jose Mercury News editorial, three California-based healthcare professionals wrote about the ways in which Healthy Kids, a program designed to provide children with health insurance, has improved the lives and education of youths in Santa Clara County.
According to the article, more than 60 percent of students in the San Jose Unified School District have medical, dental and vision coverage. This has helped children who suffer from asthma, as the number of students who need to go to the emergency room for their condition dropped to one in six with health coverage.
Furthermore, they wrote that the number of students with asthma who were advanced or proficient on the California Standards Test, a part of the California STAR Testing Program, was equal to or greater than the number of students without any health conditions who achieved these scores.
Based on the results of the 2011 California STAR Testing Program, while there was an increase in proficiency levels among all subgroups, an achievement gap still exists for Latino students, according to the California Department of Education. However, one of the state's school districts is committed to helping these pupils raise their scores.
Mountain View Patch reported that three institutions in the Mountain View Whisman School District - Bubb, Castro and Huff Elementary Schools - have all received approval to implement their School Improvement Plans. Among educators' goals is to improve students' scores on the California Standards Test (CST).
Subgroups that attend classes in the School District continue to struggle with the CST, the news source stated. For example, at Huff, only 59 percent of Hispanic students scored proficient to advanced in mathematics.
To reverse this trend, Huff plans to establish an after-school homework help center for students who require additional assistance, according to the news outlet. The institution will also provide multiple training sessions for teachers to help them work with Spanish-speaking pupils.
The University of Iowa College of Education's Iowa Testing Programs has replaced the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) with the Iowa Assessments, the Iowa City Press Citizen reported. According to officials behind the revamped tests, the changes will lead to benefits for both students and teachers.
For instance, Catherine Welch, director of statewide testing programs at the University, told the news source that the Iowa Assessments allow educators to track students' growth from year to year.
"They will have reports that provide more detailed information about a student’s individual performance at a standard level," Welch told the news outlet. "It can serve as a guide for how a child has changed over the years and where that child needs additional help and where more progress is expected."
Welch added that the revised tests were designed based on content that makes up the Iowa Core and the Common Core State Standards.
According to the University's website, the Iowa Assessments are available at different levels and measure students' abilities in broad academic areas, such as reading, social studies, math and science. The tests also focus on important skills, including the capitalization of words and punctuation.
Outstanding teachers and parental support are just two of the factors behind high scores on the 2010-11 California STAR Testing program in the Etiwanda School District, the Fontana Herald-News reported.
Students' test results in the several schools in northwestern Fontana that make up the District helped Etiwanda surpass all other districts in San Bernardino County in terms of STAR test scores, according to the news source.
Across the District, 10,455 students in grades two through eight took part in the California STAR Testing program, the news outlet stated. Based on their scores, 76 percent of students were proficient in math, while 74 achieved the same designation in language arts. Additional progress was made in closing the achievement gap for African American pupils and English learners in the areas of English and language arts.
"Etiwanda School District attributes high test scores to strong parent support, outstanding teachers and support staff, exceptional site leadership, the focus on standards, and our after school and in-school intervention programs," Sylvia Kordich, the District's assistant superintendent of instruction and pupil services, told the news outlet.
In addition to English, language arts and mathematics, the California Standards Tests measure students' abilities in science and history-social science, according to the California Department of Education.
Students have much to be proud of in the Whitefish Bay School District in Wisconsin, based on Superintendent Mary Gavigan's recent State of the District presentation, Whitefish Bay's Patch website reported.
For example, the District managed to achieve an attendance rate of 96.8 percent, which, according to the news source, is higher than other North Shore schools. Furthermore, many Whitefish students showed that they wanted to take part in school activities outside of the classroom as well. More than 80 percent of middle and high school pupils participate in extracurricular activities on a yearly basis.
In terms of standardized assessments, students in the third, fifth and seventh grades managed to perform at an average of 2.6 years above grade level in reading, language arts and math on last year's Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the news outlet stated.
While subject matter on these assessments varies depending on the test level, the ITBS also measures students' abilities in the areas of listening, social studies, science and computation, according to the University of Iowa's College of Education website.
"We are proud of all of those results and how they work together in terms of providing very excellent educational performance," Gavigan said, as quoted by the news source.
When Colorado school officials decided that it was time to update their curriculum, they chose to adopt the Common Core State Standards, according to Coloradoan. Melissa Colsman, director of teaching and learning for the state Department of Education, said that ultimately, they were searching for "fewer, clearer, higher standards."
According to its website, the Common Core State Standards is a national curriculum for mathematics and English language arts. One of its goals is to give students modern technology skills. However, it also aims to prepare high school graduates for college or the workforce.
Colsman said that this is an important part of the standards and she plans to implement this in the new state curriculum as well.
"We now have a seamless articulation of expectations from preschool to postsecondary education," she told the news source.
Colorado schools will begin to use the Common Core State Standards, in addition to their state-created curriculum, in the upcoming school year. At this time, students can expect to see a new transitional standardized testing system as well as a unique classroom learning school, the news outlet reports.
Officials from Challenger School, a private institution in Utah, recently announced that this year, its students received the highest scores on their Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) in the school's history.
Their 2011 test results indicated that the school's kindergarten students scored in the 96th percentile, meaning that they had better results than 96 percent of the other children who took the assessment. Additionally, the eighth-grade students were placed in the 98th percentile, scoring higher than 98 percent of other eighth-grade pupils who took the ITBS.
Even when Challenger School children were compared to other private schools exclusively, as opposed to all institutions that administer the assessment, officials said the students still performed much better than average.
While the results of this year's ITBS scores were particularly high, Barbara Baker, chief executive officer and founder of the school, said that the pupils have always received good results.
“Challenger students have always performed extraordinarily well on national standardized tests, consistently averaging in the top 10 percent nationally," Baker said. "We’re proud of that record and are committed to maintaining it."
Standardized tests like the SAT-10 are typically calculated electronically, but the corrections are not done at the testing site. Several school districts in the state of New York recently made history for using the first ever electronic scoring system that was on-site.
The Educational Assessment Scoring Environment (EASE) was created by the Education Division of Optimum Solutions Corporation, and was designed to use the same data capture technology that was used by the U.S. Census Bureau during their 2010 survey.
Company officials suggest that this invention will be beneficial to school districts, as it will allow their staff to determine the students' scores.
"These school districts are pointing the way to the future for all schools throughout the state and, indeed, the country," said John Harrison, executive vice president of the company. "While other states have certainly implemented electronic scoring in their standardized test data collection, none have been able, until today, to offer the EASE suite of applications that provides a totally customizable scanning, closed end processing and constructed response scoring solution."
As part of education reform, many schools are choosing to evaluate their teachers' pay based on how well students perform on standardized tests.
The media is beginning to uncover how some schools matched up to others in terms of student testing, causing some educators to criticize being portrayed as either good or bad from test scores alone, according to the Los Angeles Times.
After the Times published an analytical piece about STAR Testing scores in the Los Angeles Unified School District, some administrators and union leaders said that it was an unfair portrayal of educators.
Some critics have suggested that standardized test scores alone should not be the go-to for determining teacher pay, as there could be other reasons for student performance.
According to the Times Record Online, there are other factors for student test performance other than teachers. These factors include relationships with other teachers, the students' home environment, parental support and mobility to and from school can all be reasons for how a pupil performs on a standardized test.
It's become a requirement for public schools to assess how well their students perform when compared to the rest of the country. Through the No Child Left Behind Act, schools must choose a form of standardized testing to determine exactly where their students measure up.
However, although some private schools in Pennsylvania are opting out of taking tests, some Catholic schools and other private institutions are choosing to take the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT 10), according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
The news provider reports that these institutions are finding that they're attracting parents who are concerned that public school systems spend too much time in their curriculum focusing on prepping students for performing on standardized tests.
The SAT 10 is available to children throughout their academic careers ranging from kindergarten to high school, and tests them in reading comprehension, science and mathematics. Test takers must complete the test using multiple choice, short answers and extended responses.
Some schools across the country are using standardized test scores in order to get recognition from the government. However, a number of analysts suggests that standardized tests had become too predictable for some, which is why New York state decided to make math and English tests more difficult.
Now that proficiency has dropped, The New York Times reports that this may not be due simply to the fact that the tests are harder than before, but rather that there are flaws within the new system. Some analysts believe that because there has been such stress upon teachers to have well-performing students, they've simply been teaching pupils the exam material.
"They just kept upping the stakes with the scores, putting more pressure on the schools but not really looking at what it all means," Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University who has worked with the city's Department of Education to help improve struggling schools, told the news provider.
The news source suggests that because these standardized tests had been in place for a number of years, they became too predictable, and now many feel as though they've been thrown a curveball with the new exams.
Students within the public education sector often find themselves having to prepare for certain milestones. While standardized testing has become the norm in predicting whether or not a student matches up to the academic standards of the rest of the country, there are other ways to ensure that they're prepared for the future.
Baldwin County schools in Alabama are planning to have their eighth grade students take the EXPLORE test, which will help determine their college and career readiness, according to AL.com. This test will replace the Stanford Achievement Test after spring 2011. Additionally state officials will be adding the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test, which will start in spring 2012.
"When I talk about finding out what works," superintendent Alan Lee told the news provider. "I'm not just talking about professional development. We have to change the culture here. There should not be a school that's better than us."
The Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test is available for grades three through eight.
Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the government has been using standardized test scores to track the progress of public schools and the curricula they offer to their students. Some schools that continue to show low test scores are sometimes stripped of funding or forced to lay off teachers.
However, the state of New Jersey is finding that overall, its schools are making progress in boosting standardized test scores, according to NorthJersey.com. The results of the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) standardized tests showed that some districts are making improvements in terms of student performance.
"We are moving forward," Kathy Regan, director of curriculum and instruction for the Glen Rock school district, told the news provider. "We rolled out a new math program and our scores are unbelievable. We are now moving forward and staying focused on writing and reading."
The NJ ASK is typically given to public school students in grades three through eight. The exams are typically given in March, April or May.
The state of New Jersey is looking to hold their public school systems responsible for ensuring that their students are up to par with all that's required of their grade.
In order to ensure that students are meeting national requirements in a number of subjects, the New Jersey Department of Education has announced that high school students must take a biology standardized test in order to fulfill graduation requirements, according to the Independent.
"Starting with this year, students are going to have to receive a passing score on the [New Jersey Biology Competency Test] NJBCT," Cresenda Jones, supervisor of mathematics and science for the Holmdel Township School District, told the news provider. "If they fail the test, then the DOE will require them to retake the test, but they have not provided information at this point about what that process is going to be."
According to the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, in a practice run, nearly half of the 105,000 students who took the exam passed. In a new standard approved by the board, students must get 53 percent of the questions right in order to pass.
After the state of New York changed their standardized tests, many students have found the new exams much harder than the previous tests. However, budget cuts could mean that students who are struggling will not get the extra help they need.
Parents are concerned that children who attend schools in the Bronx will not be able to receive after school help for the test, as schools are enacting cost-cutting measures, according to the New York Daily News.
"The state raised the standards for what is passing, but the city is not giving us the resources we need to raise our kids up," Frances Tejada, an organizer with Highbridge Community Life Center, told the news provider. "How do they expect our children to be successful?"
The standardized tests have already caused controversy in New York, as teachers are fighting to ensure the scores are not made public. The news provider reports that the city still wants to release the teaching ranking despite officials deeming them flawed this past spring.
Since the inception of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, states have been subjecting students to standardized tests in order to gauge performance. There are a variety of standardized tests available such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT 10), but some states are looking to adopt unified standards.
The Common Core State Standards initiative has been adopted by 38 states thus far, with the goal of providing a clear understanding of how students in certain areas match up against the rest of the nation. States that have not yet chosen to adopt the standards include Washington, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, Maine, Virginia, Alabama, Texas and Alaska.
The standards' website suggests that adopting this form of testing could be beneficial to schools, as they provide understandable content through building on the strengths of current state standards. There is also evidence to prove that they work in determining whether or not students are prepared for college.
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