City Schools Put New Emphasis on State Tests

The California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program comes every year, but this year city schools are pushing students and parents to make the tests a priority.

Students across the state take the test each May and the results are used to prepare an Academic Performance Index (API) rating for each school later in the year. The API scores are an easy-to-understand and commonly used gauge of a school’s strength and hence affect property values. A Rand Corporation 2008 study shows a direct correlation between quality of schools and property values.

Beverly Hills students from second grade to their junior year of high school take the STAR California Standardized Tests (CST) beginning Monday, continuing through May 24. Students in grade five take an additional CST in science while eighth-grade students take extra CST tests in science and history.

If the tests are so important to schools, how come they have not always been so important to the kids? It's a simple answer: They don’t count toward an individual student’s grades.

“I asked my adult son why he never took the STAR tests seriously, and he said, ‘The teachers told us the scores don’t count,’ ” recalled Principal Steve Kessler.

Other Beverly Hills parents remember being told the same thing.

“If the teachers don’t make it a priority, the students won’t either,” Kessler said.

Kessler set out to change that at Horace Mann, where he felt an emphasis on testing is particularly important because one-quarter of the student body is new this year. Some of the new students did not take the tests at their prior schools.

In order to familiarize students with the STAR tests, students in the applicable grades took practice tests three Fridays in a row. Teachers spoke to students about the importance of the tests. The school also held a “prep” rally on May 13 for the entire campus.

“We ordered 710 purple pom-poms for every student, teacher and administrator in the building,” Kessler said, noting that purple is the school’s color. The Horace Mann cheerleading team even came up with a special cheer.

The Horace Mann PTA is providing nutritious snacks in the mornings before the tests, except for Wednesday when the tests are not being administered because of the day’s weekly late start.

Other school PTAs are also providing snacks, and at , individual teachers have organized parent volunteers to bring in breakfast items.

Here are some helpful hints for parents for the next 10 days of testing:

• Encourage your child to get adequate rest the night before the test.
• Have your child eat a nourishing breakfast.
• Make sure your child gets to school on time so that testing instructions are not missed.
• Avoid doctor appointments or other commitments during testing time.

As Board of Education Vice President Brian Goldberg recently told parents, “In order for our STAR/CST testing results to climb—which will result in the rise of our API scores—we will need all major stakeholders to buy into the process and take responsibility for our collective success.”

For more information about the STAR/CST tests, click here.

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