Standardized Test Results Released
On December 16, 2009, the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Department (BEAD) presented a powerpoint analysis of the Berkeley High 2009 demographics and test scores to the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) Board. Their data has shown that in the past year, the district’s high school student population has increased, and the standardized test pass rate has risen above the state average. It also demonstrates continuing disparities between the test scores of students with different backgrounds.
Standardized tests are used to measure students’ proficiency in grade level material, and tests such as the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) have been made mandatory for the past few years. Although these tests are only one of the ways to measure progress, the BUSD School Board and many parents have a longstanding concern about the academic achievement gap.
In 2009, the district’s pass rate for both English Language Arts (ELA) and Math portions of the CAHSEE rose above California’s state average. Although tests scores have generally increased over the past year, BEAD data showed that African-American students had a lower average first-time pass rate on the Math and ELA portions than any other ethnic group, as has been the case in previous years.
Another important test is the California Standards Test (CST), taken by ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders. Last year, district–wide student participation improved. Student proficiency in ELA on the CST improved as well, and is at or above the state average in all three grades. More than 70 percent of the ninth grade students in CAS, CPA, and SSJE attended BUSD middle schools; their proficiency rates on the CST English Language Arts exam improved as well. Although test scores generally improved, there is still significant variation in student performance throughout BHS. As with the CAHSEE, an achievement gap is shown with the CST as well with proficiency rates of African-American and Latino students being lower than their White, Asian, and multi-ethnic peers.
There are many factors that contribute to how well a student does on a test, making it difficult to determine easily the progress any individual student is making. One of these issues is the fact that only 65 percent of incoming ninth graders at BHS attended a BUSD middle school, making the overall improvement of students across grade levels hard to track.
“The gap in test scores starts well before high school,” noted BHS parent Deborah Moore. “It seems to that Berkeley High can’t solve these problems alone. Students needs more support in earlier grades.”
Another reason that it is hard to follow students’ improvement through the years is that some tests, such as college entrance tests, are voluntary and twelfth graders are not required to take them. Another factor in the challenge of analyzing test data is that it has proved to be extremely difficult to continue tracking students’ success rates after high school.
Since BHS students are from very diverse racial and economic backgrounds, student demographics are a very important part of analyzing test scores. Over the past seven years, the BHS total population has increased by 15 percent to approximately 3,500 students. Test scores in the board’s data are shown in terms of racial group, so it is important to understand the variation in demographics in order to accurately assess test scores. Since BHS is divided into seven small schools, it is important that we take into account the demographics of each of those schools. The biggest school within BHS, Academic Choice (AC), has 1,483 students. Of these students, 37 percent are white, 22 percent African American, 20 percent Multi-Ethnic, 11 percent Latino, and 10 percent Asian. This is quite different than the composition of the Community Partnerships Academy (CPA) with 51 percent African American, 27 percent Latino, 13 percent Multi-Ethnic, 7 percent White, and 2 percent Asian students.
Another part of demographics besides race in high school testing data is where the students come from before they come to BHS. About 35 percent of the BHS population comes from non–BUSD middle schools, as shown in the table on page four. This information about who goes to BHS and where they came from factors into the way we read test scores to determine how different kinds of people are doing.
“There are concrete steps we can take to reduce the gaps. The question is whether we’re willing to do the right thing,” says Jessica Quindel, a BHS math teacher on special assignment with BEAD.
BEAD is taking steps to analyze data further and will present data including grade point average, attendance, discipline, and college entrance tests.
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