Superintendent Responds to Castro Valley Students' 2012 Standardized Testing Results

“We are very pleased to see that our ,” said Superintendent Jim Negri. “This high level of achievement is due to the work of our quality teaching and support staff who are focused on making certain that every student succeeds.”

The California Department of Education (CDE) released the 2012 STAR
results, which are based on the CSTs that all students in grade 2-11 took in the
spring of 2012.

Results are reported as the percentage of students achieving one of five performance levels (Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic and Far Below Basic). The goal is to have all students achieving in the Advanced and Proficient performance levels.

In the elementary schools, more than 80 percent of the students are performing at the Advanced and Proficient levels in both English Language Arts and Mathematics.

For several years, the K-5 schools have actively implemented Response to
Intervention (RtI), which provides focused interventions for students who are
not meeting class level standards.

“RtI is definitely showing positive results in terms of student achievement,” Negri said. “Additionally, the district has been able to maintain K-3 class size reduction to 25:1 while many Preparing Our Students for Their Future districts are increasing to 30:1.”

“The percentage of students in grades 2, 3 and 4 achieving at the Advanced level were at the highest level ever,” he said. Students also achieved at record levels on the 4th and 7th grade writing tests.

In middle school and high school, the percentage of students scoring at the
Advanced and Proficient level in English Language Arts showed improvement
in most grades. Math scores in middle and high school are reported by courses,
not grade levels, so an overall score is not reported. However, the general trend is that a higher percentage of students are achieving at the Advanced and Proficient levels.

“We do not get overly excited by one year changes in STAR scores, but look at achievement patterns over time with cohorts of students," he said. "The pattern over time has been one of continuous improvement due to the outstanding work of our staff. The STAR results provide useful data for staff to analyze the performance of sub-groups and then make appropriate adjustments in programs and instructional practices. The real value of the STAR results lies in the details that we will be analyzing in the coming weeks.”

The STAR results are used to calculate the Academic Performing Index (API) and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which will be released in early October.