STAR Test to be Replaced by New Exam

BRIANA THAI
Staff Writer

As of Jan. 7, California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson called for major alterations in the yearly standardized tests. By 2015, the test many students grew up taking will be replaced by an electronic, more in-depth exam called “Smarter Balanced.”

For almost 30 years, California students took the same statewide test, called California Assessment Program (CAP). In the 1990s, the CAP was replaced by California Learning Assessment System, because of arguments over portions of the exam. In the next three years, each school district selected its own commercial tests, until the STAR program began in 1998.
Every spring, California students in grades 2 through 11 are required to take a sequence of exams that make up the California’s Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program. These standardized tests are taken before or after 85 percent of a school year has passed.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the test results are then used to rank the state’s schools, determining which ones need to strengthen instruction, which ones will get extra money and/or which ones need different teachers to perform better.

“The change of exams is for the better […] because the in-depth exams and projects can properly prepare students for colleges, unlike California’s STAR testing, which focuses only on the narrow, general subjects taught in school,” freshman Shekina Medalla said.

The newer tests will have more extensive questions compared to the previous tests, which were entirely multiple choice, with the exception of writing assessments in fourth and seventh grade. The Smarter Balanced tests are designed to emphasize critical thinking and analysis through a blend of multiple choice, short answers and extended answers.
Common Core Standards go along with the new test in order to deepen learning by having students read multiple genres, from informational to fictional texts. In response to the new standards, teachers and faculty may alter or have altered their ways of instructing by asking more free response questions.

“[The new test] will definitely be better for the students. It will have more critical and in-depth thinking,” math teacher Diane Campbell said.