Some San Rafael Schools Lag in STAR Results

Students in the San Rafael and Dixie school districts largely performed well in the Standardized Testing and Reporting results released today, but some of the city's schools have work ahead of them.

State and federal goals from the No Child Left Behind program aim to have all students at or above a proficient level in basic language arts and math tests by 2014.

California, in its goal to achieve 100 percent proficiency by 2014 (as required by No Child Left Behind), has implemented yearly goals that schools must meet. For 2009-10, the state goal is to have 58 percent of elementary students proficient or advanced in math and 54.8 percent of high school students proficient or advanced in math. In language arts, the state goal is to have 56.8 percent proficiency at the elementary and middle school levels and 55.6 percent at the high school level.

However, with just 52 percent (up from 50 last year) of all students in the state proficient in language arts and 48 percent (up from 46 last year) in math, California failed to meet these goals.

In the San Rafael City Schools both San Rafael and Terra Linda high schools did not generally meet proficiency goals in algebra scores, although 59 percent of ninth graders at Terra Linda were ranked advanced in algebra II. Superintendent Michael Watenpaugh could not be reached for comment.

Schools failing to meet these goal targets in the student population as a whole or in certain ethnic and socio-economic subgroups are deemed "program improvement" schools. After five years as a program improvement school, the state may implement certain sanctions ranging from a mere increase in funding to total closure of the school.

The annual STAR tests serve as a measure of student progress towards these targets and reports for parents on their student's academic proficiency. Individual student results are sent home to parents over the summer; individual student results are not available at the school or state level and in no way follow a student. The results are made anonymous and non-trackable at the aggregate level.

School results are used to determine a school's Academic Performance Index  – a measure of its performance from year to year. In addition to STAR results, for high schools the API takes into account graduation rates and performance on the California High School Exit Exam. Along with certain yearly goal targets, schools must meet API and graduation targets.

The push to make 100 percent of students proficient, particularly in all racial and economic subgroups, was a key feature of the No Child Left Behind Act. When No Child Left Behind is renewed later this year it is expected some of the targets and standards will change.

Marin students, on a whole, performed far better than the state averages and students.