SBCSS News and Press Releases

County Schools Show More Improvement With STAR Results

2008-08-14

SAN BERNARDINO - San Bernardino County schools grew or maintained their highest-ever levels in proficiencies in 17 categories in both English language arts and mathematics on the 2007 Standardized Testing and Reporting program (STAR).

The STAR results released publicly today by the California Department of Education (CDE) county students showed growth or maintained their highest proficiency levels in all 10 grade levels on the California Standards Test (CST) in English language arts. In math for county students, all six grade levels from grades 2-7 either showed improvement or maintained their proficiencies, as well as an increase in the proficiency level of Algebra I.

"I am encouraged that we continue to see improvement across grade levels in math and English language arts," said Herbert Fischer, county superintendent. "Still, there is work to be done so that every child is achieving academically, however, these results show that our schools continue to show progress."

The California Standards Test was administered to 328,180 students countywide in grades 2-11. There are five grading areas - advanced, proficient, basic, below basic and far below basic. While the county averages still trail the state averages, county growth rates exceeded those of the state in four grade levels in English language arts and matched the state's growth in the four other grades. In math, the county growth averages topped state's in Grades 2, 3, 5 and 7 and matched the state's growth in Grades 4 and 6. County students also improved proficiency growth rates in Algebra I that were greater than the state averages.

Highlights countywide of the STAR results:

While subgroups continue to make progress with increased proficiencies, an achievement gap remains among ethnic subgroups for African American, Hispanic and White students in both English language arts and math. The gap between Hispanic (33 percent proficiency) and Black students (32 percent) remains significant with those of White students (55 percent) in ELA. In math, African American (26 percent proficiency) and Hispanic students (32 percent) trail White students (46 percent).

For the third consecutive year, Grade 4 showed the biggest gains in growth in scoring at or above proficient in math, going up five percentage points. Grades 3 and 5 increased four percentage points.

The biggest gains in growth in English language arts were at Grade 5, where the percentage of students scoring at or above proficient increased from 38 to 44 percent.

At 19 percent, there was an increase of 3 percent among county students who scored at or above proficient in Algebra I.

The number of students scoring at far below basic decreased for grade levels 2-7 in math. In English language arts, far below basic scores decreased at every grade level, except for ninth-graders (which stayed the same).

Data for schools, districts, the county and state is available at the California Department of Education's Web site at www.cde.ca.gov.