STAR Testing: Helpful measurement or waste of time and money?

This week, in classrooms throughout the state, students in 2nd through 11th grade are finishing up taking the annual STAR Test. It’s a standardized, multiple part, fill-in-the-bubble exam designed to gauge how much of the state’s education standards all public school students have learned since the first day of school. Just getting ready for the test is a huge undertaking for schools. There are hundreds if not thousands of test documents to organize and just as many pencils to sharpen

In the end, after all tests have been taken and the answer documents have been sent to Sacramento for checking, there will be scores. For teachers, it’s a way to find out how well their students have absorbed what they’ve been teaching them all year long. For principals it’s a way to find out whether their school has met the Academic Performance Index or API score set by the California Department of Education.

But what’s in it for the students? Their STAR test score doesn’t show up on their report card and it isn’t considered on a college application.

KALW’s Education Reporter Nancy Mullane visited three schools in our Education Series and has this look at what the STAR test means to these schools.

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NANCY MULLANE: It’s Friday afternoon and the gym at Davidson Middle School in San Rafael is jam-packed. It looks like a sports rally but it isn’t. Davidson's 817 students are revving up for four days of Star Testing set to begin the following Monday morning. And it’s working. Just listen to them. Students are performing on balance beams, competing in three legged races and singing rap songs about taking the test.

STUDENTS: I think the Star is so very boring, so why even getting up in the morning. Oh Lulu, don’t be such a downer. Turn around a big old frowner. Hey I know you all aren’t friends of tests. You might moan, complain and protest, but Star is something you can’t neglect. So listen up please cause I need some respect. When you test, you get days off from learning. When you test, you go on a journey. When you test, the school gets stuff from the government. When you test, your teachers give you compliments. When I say Star, you say Yes.

Teachers like Lisa Shenson are getting caught up in the school spirit, too.

LISA SHENSON: I have a cougar paw on my face and I have DMS for Davidson Middle School because we are doing our Star Test pep Rally and this is really an amazing experience once a year. So we get them fired up. We get them excited.

Even so, Shenson has mixed feelings about the test.

SHENSON: It’s very controversial because we’ve got a lot of second language learners in California and in the United States and sometimes we feel that maybe there are other ways of testing performance and judging performance rather than just giving the test one section at a time for four days over the entire school year.

Shenson questions how the state can accurately assess students and a school from just four days of standardized testing.

SHENSON: I believe these tests are pretty darn antiquated. But Here I am and I am cheering them on because this is how the State of California provides funding for us and quite frankly, my deal is this. I’m going to be the supporter and the cheerleader for my kids no matter what and there are many teachers just like me. I am not unique. I am one of many.

About fifty miles south, at East Palo Alto Charter School, Principal Laura Ramirez is getting ready to test her 425 students, grades K through 8. Like all principals, Ramirez hopes to surpass the base API set for her school by the California Department of Education.

LAURA RAMIREZ: Everyone’s eyes are on our school to see how we do.

The State’s Academic Performance Index ranges from 200 to 1,000, but the state’s target for all schools is 800. Since 2000, the charter school’s API has grown by more than 300 points to 842, making it the highest performing school in the local Ravenswood School District. This year, Ramirez is hoping to reach 860.

RAMIREZ: We want to make learning engaging and fun and we do a really good job, but we don’t want to lose sight of what they’re going to have to do in May to prove that they’ve learned what they’re supposed to learn.

Sitting in her small office, Ramirez says unlike many principals who give the job of counting and administering the STAR tests to other staff members, she likes to do it herself.

RAMIREZ: I like to get my hands dirty.  I like to get my hands on those tests and I want to make sure for myself that everything is accounted for and nothing is missing so I like to be the one in charge of the STAR tests and it’s really important to our school and when it’s something that important, I like to have that first-hand knowledge of what’s going on.

That’s a luxury that’s simply not possible at bigger schools like Oakland Tech, a comprehensive high school with more than 1700 students. Administering the STAR Test here is just about a full time job for months before the test even begins. At Tech, that responsibility falls to Joshua Fuchs, the already swamped assistant principal.

JOSHUA FUCHS: So what we did today is we inventoried the materials. There’s 42 boxes here. Took everything out of the boxes, verified what was inside the containers was actually there so we weren’t missing anything and we had all the testing supplies we ordered and requested.

Inside a small room at the back of the library, Fuchs has been organizing thousands of test booklets and pre-coded answer documents into boxes according to each student’s 3rd period class.

FUCHS: And what I’ve done for example I’ve numbered all the boxes with one, two, three, four, because we test over four days so they’re grouped together now so I can pull just these boxes out for day one, two, three, four.

One of the challenges for Oakland Tech is its participation rate or how many students actually take the STAR Test.  Every student in 9th through 11th grade is supposed to take the English, Social Studies, Science and Math exams. Fuchs says the school’s goal this year is get 95 percent of them to take them and take them seriously.

FUCHS: When we started here five years ago, kids didn’t take it seriously, like a lot of times I would open up answer documents and they like bubbled in designs. No one was having a conversation with them about it. To tell them even though this doesn’t affect whether you graduate or not, it’s still important to you because it’s part of the accreditation process for the school.

In the past Fuchs says they’ve had pizza parties for the homeroom with the best STAR Test participation. This year they’re considering a dunk tank of school administrators.

FUCHS: We all agreed we would do it. We did have some discussions about how many balls the kids could actually throw.

But that’s not enough to convince Senior Tangi Jaddis the testing is worthwhile.

TANGI JADDIS: It’s unnecessary. We just do it because we have to. We don’t get anything out of it. I personally feel if they really cared they would come in and see what we’re learning in different ways and not just throw a test in our face.

ANDRE GRAY: I know a lot of people that feel the same way.

Senior Andre Gray is studying in the library. He says they’re tested on standards they haven’t covered in their classes so it isn’t fair and some students just don’t try.

GRAY: Well I know some people that do, but a lot of people just don’t care about it. Cause I’ve seen a few people just bubble stuff.

MULLANE: You do that?

GRAY: Once or twice. I got to the end and just bubble, bubble, bubble.

Still, that’s how academic standards in public schools are measured.

It’s the first day of testing. English teacher Rock Warner passes out the pre-coded test booklets and pencils to his 9th graders. The test savvy students get ready, placing their own erasers and pencils neatly on their desks in front of them.

ROCK WARNER: The most important thing on the first test of the week is to put the answers in the right place and that is on the backside where it says language arts. Where the front part?

The students turn the first page to the first test and begin.

WARNER: Ok, I’m going to walk around and make sure everyone is on the right page.

About half of the students in the class are wearing ear-buds. They’re listening to their iPods. Warner doesn’t seem to mind

WARNER: The research shows that many, many children are comforted by music. They’re relaxed by music. It stimulates the side of the brain that’s the same side they’re using for the test.

Whether or not it helps, Warner who’s been teaching for 40 years says he doesn’t see the harm. He says just about everyone listening to iPods are A students.

A few hours later the kids are done. For the day, anyway.

Four days later, I return for the last few minutes of the last STAR test. The students look drained.

After turning in his test booklet and answer sheet, freshman Julian Lohser takes a hall pass and goes outside for some water.

JULIAN LOHSER: I’m glad it’s over cause it’s really burning me out here because it’s usually one or two tests a week like from classes but four big tests in a row is a little too much I think

Lohser returns to class. The last students turn their tests in and pull out a deck of playing cards.

In a few minutes, Warner says he’ll take his class outside to sit on the grass and talk about comparative essays. But for now, he knows that after four days of STAR testing, these kids need to relax and have a little fun.

This year California spent more than $60 million on the STAR tests. Sometime over the summer, after the test booklets and answer documents have been sorted and sent to Sacramento for review, the schools will get the results.

The numbers will determine whether principals and their staffs can continue with their visions for running their schools or if they’ll need to make some changes, to do whatever it takes to raise their scores.

For Crosscurrents, I’m Nancy Mullane.