Initial SAT9 results show improvement in students
Preliminary results of this year’s Stanford Achievement Test 9th Edition indicate “movement” within Public School System, as Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos noted a remarkable improvement in students’ performance based on increased test scores.
“I am very excited because this means there’s improvement in teaching and learning. I think our students are taking steps in the right direction,” said the commissioner.
Test scores predominantly point to an increase especially on areas where students recorded low during the past year, according to Dr. Inos.
PSS conducted the 1999-2000 SAT9 to benchmark grade levels which included grades 3, 5, 8, 10, and 11. Fourth grade levels were also tested as information gathered from the test would be helpful toward the Comprehensive Student Accountability Plan, which is being developed locally.
“We are doing great per grade level percentile ranks,” said Dr. Inos.
Students in all grade levels who took the tests did well in Mathematics and Spelling, preliminary records reveal.
The school system this year employed Cohort Analysis where established benchmarks were used as a point of comparison for the previous evaluation administered on the same grade levels.
“And I am glad to reveal that students who learned to read in third grade did not stay non-readers in the 4th grade,” Dr. Inos said.
Conducting yearly assessment is all under PSS’ systemic standards-based reform, which has been applied by the whole system in the past five years.
During the first year of the reform, educators and members of the school community reached consensus on what students should know and be able to do in English Language Arts.
The last step in the process was to develop classroom assessments that measure the standards and benchmarks, as well as an accountability plan that gauges student learning accurately.
The impact of these reforms to PSS has resulted in active involvement among community members and has upped by 1.45 .the total SAT9 Reading achievement from 1997/98 to 1998/99. (MM)
