Half of the 5,059 students tested within the Morgan Hill Unified School District either met or exceeded state standards in English Language Arts/Literacy, according to the newly released California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
Forty percent of the same number of MHUSD’s third through eighth grade students, and 11th graders, met or exceeded state standards in Mathematics, according to the testing data provided Sept. 9 by the California Department of Education.
Statewide in all grades, 44 percent of students met or exceeded the English Language Arts standards and 33 percent reached or exceed the Mathematics standards.
In Santa Clara County, where 163,432 students were tested, 58 percent met or exceeded ELA standards and 52 percent reached that goal in Mathematics.
This is the first statewide student assessments released in two years since the California education community did away with the old Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.
About 3.2 million students were given the online assessments last spring to gauge their progress in learning new, more rigorous academic standards, known as the Common Core State Standards, to prepare them for college and careers in the 21st century, according to the Department of Education.
“We’re ahead of the state in every grade level in both English and math,” said Glen Webb, the new Director of Curriculum and Instruction for MHUSD. “That’s at least reassurance that we’re moving in a very good direction.”
Webb added that “accountability is good,” but also warned that any test results can be “misconstrued” and “misused” depending on who is doing the number crunching.
“You can look at this data a hundred different ways,” said Webb, who plans on doing just that in the coming weeks.
State Superintendent Tom Torlakson said the first year results will “serve as a baseline from which to measure future progress and should not be compared to results from the state’s previous assessments.”
CAASPP includes a number of assessments, but the most widely given are the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, which evaluate student progress on the California standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts/Literacy, often referred to as the Common Core.
“The results show our starting point as a state, a window into where California students are in meeting tougher academic standards that emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, and analytical writing,” Torlakson said. “California’s new standards and tests are challenging for schools to teach and for students to learn, so I am encouraged that many students are at or near achievement standards.”
The CAASPP tests for English language arts/literacy and mathematics were given to students in grades three through eight and grade eleven. They consist of two parts. First, there is an adaptive test taken on a computer that gives students different follow-up questions based on their answers, thereby providing a more refined picture of a student’s abilities. Second, there is a performance task that challenges students to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems. The two parts measure depth of understanding, writing, research and problem-solving skills.
Webb said administrators and faculty had access to the individual student results a few weeks ago and used that to help them place students in the proper classes.
Morgan Hill Unified School District
5,059 students tested
English Language Arts/Literacy
22% exceeded standard
28% met standard
23% nearly met standard
27% did not meet standard
Mathematics
18% exceeded standard
22% met standard
28% nearly met standard
32% did not meet standard
