The problem with S.T.A.R. testing

Editor’s note: Below is the full version of a commentary that was published in the May 6 Press-Banner. The version below has not been edited for length or style.
In the nature of bureaucracies and their inherent ability to create more white noise than tangible progress, the STAR testing program has been failed at best. But like most failed projects in public schools, the intentions, again, were relatively noble.
The desire to create and be able to measure equality amongst schools, regardless of geographic or cultural and socioeconomic boundaries is not evil, but actually makes sense and should be a priority. In a country as organized and successful as the United States of America, it wouldn’t be acceptable to have pockets of mediocrity with regards to the public school system, along with pockets of excellence. It is in our nature to strive for equality.
It should also be in our nature, however, to act in a methodical and rational manner when it comes to the creation of policy. The STAR test, put on by the state of California each year, simply isn’t based on reason. As a molecular biology major in college, I was taught that in order to pursue an answer to a scientific question, one had to remove all variables except for the one being measured. The STAR test does not do this.
With the STAR test, the question that the creators of the test set out to answer was how much is being learned by the students of the different schools within the state. The test was considered to be an objective comparative measure to judge how successful schools were in educating their kids. If we, as administrators and citizens aim to sincerely measure this, though, the test can only have that one variable. As it stands today, there are several variables in STAR testing.
The STAR testing (Standardized Testing and Reporting) is required of all students of California schools in elementary, middle, and high school and includes all basic subjects. The tests are based on California state academic standards and are completed using scantron forms, so as to facilitate easy grading. The test does not affect a student’s GPA or any other facet of their academic record in any way, and is only used to measure the school that they attend.
Once word got out to the students, themselves, that there were no actual repercussions for poor performance on the test, the inherent flaw in the STAR test was exposed. “If I am not graded on this,” the students reasoned, “why should I try?” This is where the subjectivity of the test comes in. The test is not a measure of student ability, but rather how effective schools are in getting their students to participate and to actually try on the statewide test.
At around the same time as the first administration of the STAR test, the cute little practice of filling in bubbles on the scantron form to make designs and pictures was invented. Students from the highest achieving schools to the lowest achieving schools alike have taken this concept to a new level. Many kids will brag openly that they put all C’s, or that they bubbled in the image of a flower or a dolphin, knowing that their teacher or school administrators have no recourse. In fact, the administrators shouldn’t even be aware of these designs, as they are prohibited from reviewing the answers of the students.
Because the consequences of poor results for a school on STAR testing are so severe for the school, though, a very real problem has arisen. Rather than an emphasis on the learning of the material on the star test itself, principals and schools have been reduced to essentially begging and bribing students into putting effort forth on the annual exam. Resources are being dumped into “enlightening” kids as to why they should try on the test, ice cream parties are promised, and individual teachers have begun to give incentives for participation.
Some teachers and schools have intelligent campaigns to get kids to try and other teachers and schools do not. Whatever the case, STAR testing was not invented for this purpose and the true meaning of the test has been lost. The test does not measure understanding in students, but rather all of these other factors. Again, this can in no way be considered a scientific approach to finding out a particular answer.
As tangible proof of how STAR testing can be grossly inaccurate, the case of a nearby high school, in a largely wealthy neighborhood, is a good example. For a test that matters to the kids, the high school exit exam, the kids from this wealthy neighborhood score off the charts. This particular high school has the highest local exit exam pass rate, mostly due to the affluent nature of the families and kids that attend the school. These kids understand that they can not graduate if they don’t pass the exit exam and, therefore, have a built in incentive to be successful.
In contrast, however, this school embarrassingly has one of the lowest performance levels on the STAR test in the entire county. That is, other schools with relatively low exit exam pass rates are outperforming this affluent school on the STAR test. Because the content of the two exams is of the same nature, one can only attribute the low scores on one exam versus the high scores on the other as a lack of effort on the test that, in the minds of the students, “doesn’t count.” The kids from this affluent high school were obviously not putting effort forth, and in their minds, why should they? Many of the kids find the fact they that “put all C’s” on the test to be funny. What is not funny, though, is that the school has been put on “probation”and may lose valuable funding as a result.
Whatever one’s feelings may be about the kids who aren’t trying on the exam, a more strict conviction should be put on the policy makers that find sense in this form of school wide assessment. It seems insane to me that an intelligent person in administration could not readily see the flaws in such logic and that the person could base very serious decisions, such as the allocation of funds to different schools, on the outcome of these tests. Can they really believe that the knowledge accumulation of the students is the only thing that determines their number score on the exam? Can they really believe that STAR testing is an objective measurement of a school’s performance? STAR testing might be an accurate measure of the loyalty of the student body to their school, but it certainly doesn’t serve to offer the information it was set out to collect.
A better question, though, is whether or not this is a wise use of resources. Because, again, schools are constantly crying out that they are underfunded, one has to question the rationale behind this type of careless spending. The amount of money that goes into the creation of the testing materials, the proctoring of the exams, the analysis of the results, and the energy put into pleading with kids to try, is absurdly wasteful. Even if all of these costs came to ten cents collectively, it would be a waste of ten cents, but the cost is exorbitant. This STAR test is not a wise use of money.
Scotts Valley resident Ryan Teves is a former teacher who tutors and the author of “In Defense of the American Teen.”