El Cerrito, Kensington Schools' Test Scores Mirror State Trend of Gradual Improvement

Results of state STAR tests taken by students in the spring show El Cerrito and Kensington schools following the state trend of gradual improvement. A comparison of this year’s results to last year’s on the California Standards Tests, also referred to as the CSTs, by school and subject show gradual gains in most cases. (See the color graphs in the “Photos” section accompanying this article.) The CSTs are the main component of California’s Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.

Data posted by the state this morning, Monday, is available at http://star.cde.ca.gov/.

Some of the strongest gains were in Portola Middle School’s language arts scores, El Cerrito High’s 10th grade science, Fairmont Elementary School’s math scores, and Harding Elementary School’s science scores.

At Portola 54.5 percent of students scored proficient or better in 2011 in English-language arts compared to 44.7 percent in 2010, a gain of 9.8 percentage points. At El Cerrito High, 40.7 percent scored proficient or better on 10th grade science in 2011 compared to 30.7 percent in 2010, a gain of 10 percentage points. At Fairmont, 59.2 percent scored proficient or better in math in 2011 compared to 50.2 in 2010, a rise of 9 percentage points. At Harding, 56.4 percent scored proficient or better in science in 2011 compared to 41.7 in 2010, an increase of of 14.7 percentage points. At the elementary level only fifth-graders are tested in science, but the test covers the fourth as well as the fifth grade standards.

The CSTs are based on the California content standards which spell out what students are expected to learn in each subject by grade level. Although California has adopted the Common Core standards, which are an attempt to have the same standards nationwide, it has not yet revised its tests to reflect them. The tests are still based on California-specific standards adopted in earlier years.

Questions from past CSTs are posted on the California Department of Education's website.

In addition to containing numeric scores, reports sent to parents and schools indicate whether the student is far below basic, below basic, basic, proficient, or advanced in each subject matter tested. Because the state’s goal is to have students score at least proficient, educators often look at the combined percent of students scoring at proficient and advanced.

In addition to the schoolwide numbers, the data available from the state is broken down by grade level and in secondary schools sometimes by course (Algebra I etc.). (See the “Photos” with this article for the 2011 charts for El Cerrito and Kensington schools).

The West Contra Costa Unified School District, like most across the state, routinely reviews its data at the classroom, grade level, school, and district level for trends. The data is used to identify individual students who need additional support as well as particular subjects or individual standards that need improvement across a class, grade, school or districtwide. The schools and district also review data broken down by various subgroups such as economic status or language fluency to see how different “subgroups” are progressing. West Contra Costa, like the state and many districts, has been paying particular attention in recent years to the breakdown by ethnicity because of its goal of closing the gap between the performance of Latino and African-American students and their peers.

At the state level, a statement from Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said, “California’s students continue to steadily improve their performance across the board, with a larger proportion than ever scoring proficient or higher on the 2011 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program exams in English–language arts, mathematics, science, and history–social science.”

Three graphs supplied by the state Department of Education and focusing on statewide progress on student scores since 2003 are in the “PDFs” section accompanying this article.

Statewide, about 4.7 million students were tested under the 2011 STAR program, with 54 percent scoring proficient or above in English-language arts and 50 percent scoring at proficient or above in mathematics, the highest percentage since the program began in 2003.