Test results released August 15 by the California Department of Education showed that students in Sacramento County continue to show improvements in average reading and math scores. Average reading scores improved in all grades in Sacramento County. All but 10th- and 11th-grade students in Sacramento County showed improvement in average math scores.
Results of the 2001 STAR program, including data by school, district, county, and state, may be accessed online through the California Department of Education website.
In spring 2001, nearly 4.5 million California public school students in grades 2–11 (168,028 students in Sacramento County) took the reading, mathematics, written expression, and spelling sections as required by state law. This year, the STAR program featured the Stanford Achievement Test, Ninth Edition, Form T (Stanford 9), published by Harcourt Educational Measurement; the California Standards Tests, produced for California public schools; and the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education, Second Edition (SABE/2).
For the first time, results of the California Standards Tests in English-language arts have been reported in terms of California’s newly adopted performance levels. Each student receives a score for performance on the test at one of five levels: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, or Far Below Basic. Said California Superintendent of Schools Delaine Eastin, "The Proficient level has been established as the goal for all students, and that is a rigorous and ambitious goal. These first test results reveal that, on average, only 30 percent of our students currently are reaching the goal. We must work together to provide schools the support they will need so that all of our children have the knowledge and skills they will need to lead successful lives."
The 2001 scores will become part of the baseline for the Academic Performance Index (API), California’s index of school achievement, and will be part of the calculation for overall growth in school achievement in 2002.
Stated Eastin, "This first inclusion of standards-based scores in the API signals an important shift in accountability toward the use of the California Standards Tests and away from reliance on norm-referenced test results. In 2002, our new tests in mathematics, history-social science, and science also will report results using performance levels, and will then become a part of the baseline for the API."
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