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Riverside County students continue impressive gains on state test
Riverside County’s students continue to register academic gains in nearly every grade level, subject and subgroup in California’s 2010-11 standardized testing, according to results released this week by the State Department of Education.
More than 320,000 students across the county broadly improved scores for the 10th year in a row and despite difficult economic times and historic budget cuts for schools during the last four years.
“The test results over the past decade show Riverside County’s educators have successfully created a culture of continual academic improvement within our public schools, and a generation of the county’s students and families have embraced that expectation,” said Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Kenneth M. Young. “That’s a formula for long-term success.”
The annual STAR testing results reflect performance on a battery of exams, called California Standards Tests, which most pupils take each Spring. Subjects range from English-language arts, math and science to history-social science. K-12 students get different batteries of tests, depending on grade. The STAR results also incorporate alternative tests for students with special education needs.
Highlights for Riverside County students in the new state report:
• More than 53 percent, scored either advanced or proficient in English-language arts, an increase of 2 points from the previous year.
• 61 percent of Riverside County students in grades 2 through 7 scored advanced or proficient in mathematics. That also marked a 2-percent gain, year over year. And in another math category, 48 percent of students in grades 2 through 11 scored advanced or proficient, a gain of 3 points over 2010.
• Gains were made this year in all other subject areas as well. The percentages of Riverside County students scoring advanced or proficient increased by 3 points in science categories (for grades 5, 8 and 10) and 4 points in History-Social Science.
• Since 2003, when all state tests were completely aligned to state standards for the first time, the percentage of Riverside County students scoring advanced or proficient in English-language arts has grown by 22 points. Also since 2003, the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in math, grades 2 through 7, grew by 23 points. In math for grades 2 through 11, the long-term gain is 17 points.
• The percentage of Riverside County eighth-graders taking the Algebra I exam (or an end-of-course equivalent) has increased by 23 percent since 2003, to 63 percent. And the percentage of those students scoring proficient or above in algebra has likewise increased to 42 percent. That’s an 18-point gain since 2003.
In addition, each significant subgroup of students has shown improvement since 2003. However, the persistent statewide achievement gap is also reflected in these results: African-American, Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged students along with English-learners and those with disabilities continue to lag the performance of white and Asian students.
The state is releasing district- and school-level STAR results separately. The CAHSEE, or state high school graduation test, and the API and AYP results, associated with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, will be released by the state later this month.
For information contact:
Tom Willman, Public Information Officer
Telephone: (951) 826-6180
Fax: (951) 826-6199
twillman@rcoe.us |
