SBCSS News and Press Releases

County Students Show Record Improvement With STAR Results

2009-08-18

SAN BERNARDINO - San Bernardino County students matched the best-ever performance in results released today for the 2009 Standardized Testing and Reporting program (STAR). Students made across-the-board, grade-level improvements in both English language arts and math in 20 areas and exceeded state growth in 14 of those categories while matching state growth in four others.

Students improved their proficiency levels on the California Standards Test (CST) in all 10 grades from second through 11th grade on English language arts. They also improved in 10 categories among all grade levels in Grades 2-7 mathematics, algebra, geometry, algebra II and total high school math. Those results equaled the best gains made since the California Department of Education adopted its current format in 2003.

"Besides the across-the-board improvement by grade level, the impressive part of the results included gains realized among all groups of students, particularly among our Hispanic, African American and Socioeconomically Disadvantaged," County Superintendent Gary Thomas said. "I applaud not only the work of our county students, but the efforts of our teachers, schools and districts to make these improvements possible."

The standards tests were administered to 323,871 students from the county in grade levels from second to 11th. There are five grading areas - advanced, proficient, basic, below basic and far below basic.

County proficiency averages still trail the state averages, but county growth rates exceeded those of the state in six grade levels in English language arts and matched the state's growth in three other grades. In math, the county growth proficiency averages topped the state's gains in Grades 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, as well as in geometry, algebra II and total high school math. It also matched the state's growth in Grade 4.

While subgroups have made six consecutive years of growth with increased proficiencies, there remains an achievement gap among ethnic subgroups for African American, Hispanic and White students in both English language arts and math. This year, Hispanic (38 percent proficiency) and Black students (37 percent) matched the 1-year growth of 5 percent that White students (60 percent) made in ELA, although the achievement gap did not getting any smaller. In math, Hispanic students (five-point growth to 37 percent proficiency) had one point more growth than White students (50-percent proficiency), while African American students (30-percent proficiency) matched White students' 4-percent growth.

Highlights countywide of the STAR results:

• In English language arts among county students, Grade 6 showed the biggest gains in growth in scoring at or above proficient, going up nine percentage points. Grade 4 (eight points) showed the next highest gains.
• The biggest gains in growth in math for county students were made at Grade 5, where the percentage of students scoring at or above proficient increased from 46 to 55 percent.
• At 21 percent, there was an increase of 2 percent among county students who scored at or above proficient in algebra I.

Check out the charts.