Tuesday, August 16, 2005 | The San Diego Unified School District recorded double-digit gains in math proficiency and a 5-percent increase in the percentage of students meeting state standards in English and language arts, according to Standardized Testing and Reporting results for 2005 released Monday by the California Department of Education.
Detailed data on each school, district and county in the state based on tests administered to public school students last spring in grades 2-11 can be viewed by visiting the STAR Web site. California High School Exit Exam results have also been released and are now available as well.
“We are extremely pleased with our results and gratified to see such tremendous growth over the past few years,” said SDUSD Interim Superintendent Leslie Fausset.
SDUSD officials say the district has outperformed all other California urban school districts except San Francisco and continues to narrow the achievement gap.
For the CAHSEE, SDUSD officials said that 83 percent of students in the class of 2006 passed the English and language arts portion, and 80 percent passed the math portion.
California’s students have improved in nearly every subject and grade level, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said.
He said 40 percent scored at the proficient or advanced level in English and language arts, a gain of 5 percent from 2004, and 38 percent were proficient or advanced in mathematics, compared to 34 percent last year.
“This impressive gain in student achievement can be traced back to the implementation of our comprehensive standards-based educational system,” O’Connell said in a prepared statement. “Since California adopted rigorous standards of what every child should know and be able to do and systematically integrated those standards into the classroom, our schools have made steady improvement.”
O’Connell was similarly pleased with results for CAHSEE, which he said exceeded projections.
“The California High School Exit Exam is one of the cornerstones of California’s accountability system,” he stated. “I knew that our students could rise to the challenge of higher expectations, and I am proud of the rate of student success thus far on the exam. The vast majority of the incoming senior class has already passed the exit exam, and our schools have cut in half the number of students that have yet to pass.”
The California Standards Test is the heart of the STAR program and measures how well students have met state standards in each subject at each grade level. The CST results are key in calculating the state’s Academic Performance Index numbers as well as Adequate Yearly Progress.
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