Subject: English Language Arts
Grade Level(s): 2 – 11
Measures Growth: No
Visit Website
The California Standards Test is part of the STAR Program, administered each spring to all California students. The CST measures student achievement in ELA in all grades from 2-11, using multiple-choice questions. Writing is tested with open-response questions at grades 4 and 7.
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Standards are not linked year-to-year, so it's hard to determine whether students are growing or whether the test is assessing something previously untested.
When students arrive in my classroom, their scores reflect standards from the prior year, many of which are not addressed in the standards I teach, so the data is not very useful for anything other than broad groupings.
Because results are reported by strand, it's difficult to know exactly where students need additional support.
Results are reported in August, when I no longer teach the students tested.
Writing is not tested at every grade level, which means some students are "advanced" but are not yet able to write at grade level, meaning that they are not on track for college readiness.
Submitted by Lindsay in California on May 14, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
I feel like all I do now is test, test, test.
Submitted by Roylene in California on May 11, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data
The English Language Arts portion of the CST is mediocre at best. The biggest drawback is it takes too long to get scores.
Submitted by Christopher in California on May 11, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The test itself is very straight forward, but the way it is used is deplorable. Students are granted opportunities or remediation based on a test they took the year before. Teachers are judged based on their students' results on the CST. The math word problems in 5th grade are so convoluted and confusing, that even students whose first language is English have trouble. All in all, useless.
Submitted by Evelyn in California on May 10, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test, in fifth grade, has an overload of reading. Students exhaust themselves reading passages before they even get to the questions. Our language arts program had to align to the test, not the other way around. The results need to be broken down into sections or topics, each with its own score, such as vocabulary, spelling, grammar, etc. This is the only way the scores would be meaningful to me. If scores are broken down into skills, then I know what I did well and what I need to work on. And what is "Writing Applications," anyway? How can you test writing skills when students are not writing?
Submitted by Carol in California on May 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST encourages "drill and kill" type teaching to the test. This type of assessment does not actually prepare students for the real world and it discourages any type of critical thinking and problem solving.
Submitted by Erin in California on April 29, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Ideally the annual assessments need to be rewritten and brief. Teachers need to assess students at the beginning and end of the year, using the same test. Then their is a true measure of growth. In science we teach students about variables, and that a scientific test must have one variable. Currently we are measuring student growth (dependent variable) against the previous year's test, (that's 2 variables) and student growth from 3rd grade teacher compared to 4th grade is another variable. Scientific? NOT!
Submitted by Christine in California on April 29, 2013
Pros: Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CSTs are not culturally relevant to the populations of students that I teach. They decrease "equality" and they promote injustice to teaching staff and students. They utilize "cookie cutter" methodology to assess diverse populations--including ESL, Special Needs students, diverse ethnic populations and gendered/sexuality identified students who do not or cannot relate to the tests readings, problems and questions. The CSTs do not take into account the social values nor social constraints of a school's demographic communities, thus leaving too many students at a support deficit that might assist them to demonstrate growth on the tests. Students and Parents/Guardians tend to review the tests in terms of "pass or fail", when they must be educated to identify areas of growth and weakness--all of which should be utilized to promote overall student academic achievement. The CSTs are restrictive in that they are multiple choice, and they offer no diversification to assess students in multiple forms--there is no forum for written expression or oral presentation which better serves the assessment needs of many of my students. There is no forum for individual accommodation using tools like audio or visual support for those students who best demonstrate skill and knowledge through the use of these tools, but who have not been assessed for or approved for IEP or Special Education services. High school level tests are administered too late in the year to provide teachers with more immediate feedback to facilitate improved direct instruction and intervention in curriculum and lesson planning. Test scores and feedback are returned too late for individual students' remediation within the current academic/testing year. By the time data is collected, students have moved onto other teachers in a new academic year. The CSTs may be indicative of a school's overall performance from year to year, but there are too many negative factors that might inaccurately reflect a school's and its teachers level of performance and effectiveness. Overall, it seems that CST scores are increasingly used to measure teachers' levels of skill, and performance, but the fact that data is inaccurate and not immediately distributed nor assimilated to facilitate the diverse and complicated work that goes on in classrooms, the negative impact on teachers has decreased the original intent which was to use the data to improve student learning and retention. It also appears that the CST's are not aligned to the Standards, they do not promote higher-order thinking, they do not track students learning gains over time, and they are not helpful to the professional growth of most teachers. I am certain that like most California teachers, whether new or seasoned in the profession, I work tirelessly to meet the diverse needs of students in my classrooms, yet the CST's offer no measure of even the smallest level of students' individual growth over the course of a school year which can fluctuate from day to day. Increasingly, teachers in our State find themselves merely "teaching to the tests"--Professional Development "collaboration" means teachers disassembling tests to identify specific Standards and how many questions on each test are about just those Standards. "Lost in translation" is the fact that ALL of the Standards should be integrated into classroom teaching and learning so that students are afforded optimum levels of academic skills in all subject areas. However, we teachers increasingly find ourselves forced into limited teaching of lessons that are focused solely on Standards that will be assessed on the CST's. The tragic result is that students are in "Test Prep" mode year in and year out, and we cannot truly assess what is actually learned and retained. Given the day and time of the tests' administration, and perhaps given a school's negative climate and culture, students may not "perform" for these tests at all. There are negative factors, other than teacher performance, that are not accurately reflected in a school's test scores. This teacher would much prefer that students be afforded opportunities to demonstrate their skills and knowledge without "performing" on those scheduled test days. This, I believe, would give all of us a truer measure of what students have learned and retained over time, it would give us a truer measure of the dedication and skill of teachers in diverse, overcrowded, inclusion classrooms, and it would give us a truer measure of schools' climates and cultures that also heavily and increasingly impact students' "performances" on all of the CST's.
Submitted by Judy in California on April 28, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This assessment does not take into consideration the growth and differentiated instruction levels of students with disabilities.
Submitted by Debra in California on April 18, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST does not take into consideration the differences among students due to socioeconomic influences and limited parent involvement.
Submitted by Selene in California on April 14, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
These tests are standards and there are very few "standard" students in my classes, and I would say in our district and many districts in California. The student who performs well in these tests usually has well educated parents who can devote time at home and after school to support the process started at school. The students I have come with issues in language and school in general, and come from dysfunctional home environments that do not support them, yet, they are very capable in expressing their ideas through discussions. I have some very deep thinkers, some great analytical minds who survive against incredible odds on the streets. A test that allows them to engage in thinking would give a teacher a greater perspective of what they are capable of doing with literature. A test given early in the year to test what the current students are capable of doing at this time would give the teacher to support that child for that year. Given at the end without results provided before the year ends gives the teacher no sense of completion or of providing the necessary remediation before the students move on. Furthermore, a teacher can't teach what has been missing for years due to a variety of reasons, the least likely is bad teaching in elementary or intermediate. If the Dept. of Education was really using these test to measure a student's growth and to support further growth rather than a teacher's ability, then they would not administer them at the end of the year. The results come long after the students have moved on. The Districts compare the scores of the current students' scores to the previous year scores of completely different students. The test may give an overall sense of a school's accomplishment over an extended period of time but not of individual classes or teachers.
And of course, we see fluctuation in an individual teacher's scores through out the years. Although I rarely change how I teach. I have been consistent in meeting the needs of particular student thus using whatever method will work best in that moment. For 30 years I have done that and it has worked. But the tests do not always reflect that reality. They reflect a snapshot moment of a child's life and then we decide it reflects how a teacher performed for a whole year. Isn't that preposterous?
Submitted by Isa in California on April 14, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The biggest thing is the lack of ability to use it at all to improve my instruction.
Submitted by Jennifer in California on April 13, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test takes so much valuable learning time away from students. Teachers are required to do so much test prep before the test, and then the actual test takes two to three weeks to administer, depending on the grade level or whether or not the students are in a bilingual setting. Results are not available until after the students have moved on to the next grade, so I cannot use the data to help students while they are in my class.
Submitted by Jennifer in California on April 13, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This testing is supposed to be replaced soon. My concern is will the next, more comprehensive, test take even more time from learning?
Submitted by KJ in California on April 13, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time
If writing were part of the CSTs I would feel more comfortable in rating this much higher. However, since writing is not part of this standardized test, it definitely falls short.
Submitted by Corinne in California on April 12, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The test is aimed at English proficient students with no learning problems. Districts evaluate teachers based on comparing last year's students to current students on the same test. That is apples to oranges comparisons. Average student takes two to three hours to complete one test. Very tiring for the children.
Submitted by Laurie in California on April 11, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test is not an indicator of learning when it is not aligned with our standards, curriculum or texts.
Submitted by Christine in California on April 11, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST is obsolete and ambiguous in language, not based in today's reality for test takers, and is written in level of language for adults, with training and instructions that use redundant, stale wording, not addressed to adult educators, but assumes an audience of the illiterate. Since the test is written for adults and the administrative directions are written for children, how is it that scores are insightful at all? The data outcomes do not address the test taker, only the ingestion of standards too numerous and poorly worded to make informative use of in the classroom, regardless of the ideas the test creators had in mind. The released test questions only cloud the issues that plague the state's efforts to assess students. It is hoped that the new standards are not so burdensome for today's student living in a very different world from that of the test creators. Give educators the reins in assessing and informing themselves, to inform their instruction without all the administrative interferences that skew data and pit educators against each other. If we are to be competitive with the rest of this country, educators need to have compatible, synchronized electronic tools and adequate collaborative time to do justice with the new CCSS assessments. Regional application should also be considered for the language used in forming questions. Please PROOFREAD before publishing anything! It is not modeling success when educators have to be embarrassed as they apologize for shoddy wording. Reduce the quantity of questions and improve the quality of the questions. Even two assessments annually would be welcome with the new CCSS. While creating CCSS assessments, get students to engage with the test, to prove they engage with their education. In other words; anyone can be programmed to memorize the spelling of a word, but few are able to explain what a word really means. There has been little to no time given to educators to instruct in critical thinking areas. If this is to be successful, we need to have realistic pacing guides and textbooks. Stop adopting textbooks that contain 2 years of mostly useless of fictional information to be forced down a student's throat in 9 months. They need not be so heavy, thick and full of so much junk, with dashes of actual (abridged) texts inserted here and there. Pacing guides do not work for any worthy assessment system, unless we have statues seated in our desks. These so called guides need to be aligned with students, -not used as marketing tools, aligned with curriculum texts. Just as state adopted curriculum materials should be, the CCSS assessments sorely need to be organized, in a differentiated, tiered, or leveled manner, inclusive of ELD, and SPED without advertised version discrimination such as CMA, etc. This influences outcomes as well.
Submitted by t in California on April 11, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
California will not be using the CST tests after this year so the value of spending time reviewing and preparing for these tests is questionable. It has always seemed like a waste of time since we don't get the results until after our students have moved up to the next grade level. By that time we are immersed in teaching our current students, not trying to reteach students from the past year. We are moving towards the Smarter Balance/Common Core tests so perhaps we should be focusing on how to teach the new standards instead of spending enormous amounts of time preparing students for the current tests.
Submitted by Charmaine in California on April 10, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time
The tests are becoming outdated. They do not assess thinking strategies, only correct answers. With the move into core curriculum and analyses of varieties of subject matter and content, the current standardized tests are rather outdated and 2 dimensional.Good multiple choice test takers are good multiple choice test takers.
Submitted by Melanie in California on April 10, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Enough with the BS - too many factors that make this irrelevant.
Submitted by KHOA in California on April 10, 2013
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Assessments are supposed to be: I taught this; lets see how you did. In 8th grade English, there are 57 standards that students are to MASTER in 180 days (90 something if you include sub-standards). Legally, we are not allowed to look at the test, or discuss it. California's stance is "you are not allowed to know how we determine what your student learned."
If the State was serious about transparency, they would release the test to the educator at the beginning of the year so they can properly prepare their students with some specific knowledge (instead of shamans rolling bones into a bowl in Sacramento).
Submitted by Jonathan in California on April 10, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
It takes too long to complete because it is without value.
Submitted by Kenneth in California on April 10, 2013
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
When you teach Read 180 to 14-18 year old students who have reading comprehension levels below 6th grade, what is the point of using the CST's to determine anything about those students and their progress? Not only this, but I teach at an alternative school for criminal boys who have been in and out of the juvenile justice system since junior high. Most have less than 20 high school credits by the time their seniors, so they've missed so much school there is no way to cover, in just six months, all they need to know to pass any part of the CST. Most of my students don't know what a noun is, so I have to go all the way back to elementary level education to make it possible for them to function in a high school class. Besides, one test is NEVER a valid indicator of a student's ability to learn or to understand.
Submitted by Julia in California on April 10, 2013
Pros: Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This assessment is difficult for inner city students to comprehend and it is very frustrating as a teacher to let them struggle and to realize that the test is not created for these students
Submitted by Michael in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test is administered each spring. We get the results the following school year. The results compare apples to oranges since each class has different needs, strengths, and dynamics. I could go on and on, but it would be pointless.
Submitted by Holly in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
I am at a title one school and everything we do is about this one state test. The test does not tell us what kind of thinker a child is. It is good for kids that know how to take a test.
Submitted by Ann in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The learning disabled students I teach struggle to access the CST, or for that matter, the CMA. They do not see it as a valuable use of their time. I watch them finish it sometimes in less than two minutes per section. Therefore, it does not provide me with data which helps me to better collaboratively provide input their individual education plans, or drive group instruction.
Submitted by Gerald in California on April 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • It is hard to use the data
The data take until weeks after school has started to come back, so we can't use the most current data for student class/level placement. The data on the actual writing test given at 4th and 7th grades doesn't come to us. Since it's a once-yearly snapshot of overall progress, it has limited ongoing use. I have been able to use the data to help students set goals for the coming test.
Submitted by Tracey in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test is mostly a waste of time. Too many students don't take it seriously and just rush through it, or bubble randomly. There is no way to assess whether a student just made a careless error or truly doesn't understand a concept. Since each year's test is different, and addresses different standards, comparing one year to the next is pointless, and even comparing one year's grade level to the previous group in that grade doesn't account for the differences in abilities from one class to the next.
Submitted by Deborah in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Students have limited buy-in. It is given near the time of year that promotion occurs and the concentration level is low. Students have been administered so many district benchmark assessments near to the testing period that they are burned out on testing and naturally care the least about the CST. It is given too late in the school year, and so is only a summative assessment; it is useless for helping me address the remedial needs of individual students. I receive the data far too late and by the time the results are in my students have moved on. In addition, this test and its weighted far too heavily in being the determinative factor in a student's prediction of success or appropriate placement level.
Submitted by Anne in California on April 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The amount of time we spend prepping kids for the test and then testing (a full week at the high school) is, by and large, a tremendous waste of time. I do not believe that each year students need to take a 4-hour test in both English and math -- a test company that knows what they are doing should be able to make this test much shorter! It is difficult to keep students on task for these long periods of time, and many students, especially those who skills may be low, simply give up after about an hour and a half of work. Secondly, few English teachers give mutiple choice question tests; we are more likely to test higher level thinking skills and have students explain answers. The final reason I dislike this test is the manner in which it tests editing skills using multiple choice. My students can and do successfully edit papers; however, when given a paragraph and questions about which sentence should come after sentence 4 with a choice of 4 sentences, they do poorly. Why? Because the ability to choose from among 4 choices to plug in a sentence is not a useful skill. When would that ever happen in anyone's class room? If the testing people want to test the ability of students to edit their own, or other's papers, then give the student's an example of a poorly written paper and allow them to truely edit it.
Submitted by Shannon in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
What is the point of this test? It doesn't test the standards that are in our curriculumn. We don't get any results until the students are gone and in the next grade. Having only multiple choice questions causes students to put in far less effort in both learning and in demonstrating knowledge come test time. The format of the test and the vocabulary used in the test questions is nothing that our curriculumn presents ever, so test day comes and half of it is foreign to them. Unless we throw out our curriculumn and make our own homemade stuff throughout the year with similar test formats etc. but who's got that kind of time.... NO ONE.
Submitted by Jeni in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Problems with the CST: It is not tied to student grades, so students have limited buy-in. It is given near the time of year that honors students take AP and IB exams, and when many juniors are taking SAT and ACTs; they are burned out on testing and naturally care least about the CST. It is given only at the end of the year, and so is only a summative assessment; it is useless for helping me remediate individual students, and comparing results from one class to another is pointless--they are different people! It is built primarily upon texts that aren't copywrite-protected, so they tend to be long and boring. If I, an English teacher, fall asleep while reading these texts, my students aren't going to find them any more interesting (again, limited buy-in). I'm going to stop now.....
Submitted by Tracey in California on April 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This assessment data is not useful to me because my students are no longer in my class when I receive their scores. Also, I cannot see how students did on individual questions.
Submitted by Nessa in California on April 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Data is presented clearly
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The longest two weeks of the year is during STAR testing. I was shocked when I came from upper grade and saw my second graders crying and shaking in fear. Over a test? UGH! Second graders are not developmentally prepared for that sort of pressure. Research tells us that students can focus on a given topic for maybe ten minutes at the most. This test takes hours over a period of two weeks. I long for a day when the state of CA values the data I gather. That's the data that matters.
Submitted by Mandy in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
There are many different types of assessments that I am required to give. The California STAR Test is overall assessment I am required to give. It does not test students reasoning or problem solving ability. It does not test students with their type of learning. The STAR test does not allow for in depth knowledge of subjects that are relevant to the future of these students.
Submitted by Marianne in California on April 9, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The ELA CSTs have, as their only benefit, a relatively low cost for the state to administer. They do not evaluate standards-based learning in English sufficiently (and the standards are limiting as well.)
Submitted by Brian in California on April 9, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly
Covers lower level skills in part because at grades 3-5 is almost entirely in the multiple choice format. No open constructed response questions in order to test for higher-order thinking skills and problem solving ability in new contexts. Because California's standards are more rigourous than most states I would rate the test at average.
Submitted by Joseph in California on March 26, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
As a high school teacher of English Lang. Arts, I'm responsible for teaching in four domains under the current CA ELA standards: reading, writing, listening, speaking. These tests do not even pretend to address speaking and listening. They do pretend to assess writing skills, but we know that there's a gap between knowing the writing/editing rules and applying them independently in one's own writing. I don't accept multiple choice as a valid format for writing assessment. That leaves us with reading assessment. Many of the questions can be answered by skimming the reading passages. Questions involving vocabulary are poorly designed because the question cannot distinguish if the student just happens to know the word or if s/he is able to use the context to figure it out. There's no point in trying to assess student vocabulary with a random selection of 4-5 words - the error rate would be too high. And finally, my students are receiving widely varied practice with academic reading in all of their classes. I reject the idea that their CST performance can isolate the effects of my teaching in any meaningful way. The tests are minimally useful in looking at a student's overall abilities, if you have other measures along with them. I work in a very high scoring, high performing school, and we never do test prep, never use and never discuss CST results. It has nothing to do with the types of academic performance that our students and community care about.
Submitted by David in California on August 26, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Not much to add other than it's a fact of life - they are neither the answer nor criminally off-base in terms of what they measure. There is some good stuff and we all need some numbers to measure our kids. I am guessing there is some decent research behind the CST, but holy moly there is way too much drama on these things.
Submitted by Morgan in California on April 19, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The common core might help the improvement of the assessments.
Submitted by Michelle in California on April 3, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
I think it would be a better idea to have mini CST assessments given multiple times on various standards over a period of time. At the elementary level that would make much more sense than giving a multiple choice test during the course of 1 or 2 weeks and expect students to maintain the stamina to do well each and every day on a fill in the bubble test that is way too long. Many students might have trouble at home and be emotionally preoccupied, are feeling sick one day, didn't get any sleep the night before, or just can't manage to concentrate on a test like this for more than 1 hour at a time.
And yet we continue to test them and then label them at a particular level (i.e. Far Below Basic) that "brands" them for the entire year in the following grade level. In addition, the CST tests them using high level vocabulary in questions. For example an English Learner may know how punctuate properly in their own writing and may use commas, periods, and quotation marks perfectly in their own writing. But when given a question that reads "Choose the sentence from the passage above that has the most appropriate use of punctuation" it throws them off. For that reason, the CST may not only be testing punctuation but also a student's ability to understand a particular set of academic vocabulary that they are not used to hearing or seeing. In that way, some questions test more than one thing at a time and are actually testing more than they claim to assess. Some students may know the skill or understand the concept but when the vocabulary level of the questioning is over their heads, they freeze up and don't know what to do. This causes teachers to have to teach "testing vocabulary" and testing strategies to students instead of focusing on only teaching standards to the best of their ability. Teachers now have to also teach how to properly take a test and how to handle the language of the test. (Those are not CA state standards).
This problem also happens when have no prior knowledge of the topic of a passage (i.e. one about the ocean because they may have never been to the ocean before in their life even though they live in Los Angeles). In these cases we are really putting them at a disadvantage on these tests. Instead of testing their ability to analyze topic sentences or tell main idea on reading passage that most kids would actually be familiar with (i.e. something they can actually relate to)...the CST has them read passages about things like the Panama Canal on the CST to assess weather they can identify a proper topic sentence or tell a main idea. Well if they know nothing about the topic, do we really think 8, 9, 10, 11 year-olds are going to be able to show what they really know about topic sentences and main idea? The format of the test and topics of reading passages including testing vocabulary words can greatly affect a student's chance of actually showing what they know about actual CA state standards.
The current CST tests more than standards. It tests how well prepped a child is for testing, what level of stamina they have to sit and take tests for a long period of time, their level of special "testing vocabulary words" often using in multiple choice standardized questions, their prior knowledge of topics in reading passages, and more unintended things.
I understand the state needs some sort of standardized assessment and so do teachers and students. And it is too time intensive to have students explain their thinking because there is no funding or many power to pay for people to correct those kinds of tests. Therefore, we rely on scantron, fill in the bubble tests. But we need to do better to find a more valid way of assessing to see how teachers are doing, and how students are doing. The CST test we have now is definitely not the best we can do.
We should all be putting our heads together to do a better job.
Submitted by Lisa in California on April 2, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time
Test like this offered only once a year does not provide adequate means for tracking students' growth.
Submitted by Telesa in Tennessee on March 31, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time
I like the fact that the test is more rigorous, however it still does not measure my student's learning gains over time. Also, it does not give any room for those that are far below grade level.
Submitted by Tamlah in Tennessee on March 30, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The good side is that a good test preparation program will teach students how to examine thoughtfully text. The bad side is that the English CST is essentially a vocabulary test but it tests vocabulary in a roundabout way.
Submitted by Robert in California on March 6, 2012
Pros: Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
This test is a travesty and should NEVER be used to judge a teacher, much less a student. One of my former colleagues left to teach at a private school and guess what? They don't try to shove 12 world history standards down kids' throats. They teach one standard per quarter or four per year. They teach deeply, not superficially. The students receive a grade AND a narrative analysis. In other words, my colleague can be a real teacher without being harassed to "look at data" and view students one dimensionally. He doesn't get told not to use historical non-fiction in his history class because the standards might not all be "covered." Yes this is the world we LAUSD teachers live in. You want to support teachers: put all the money going to "value added" and put it into para educators for classrooms
Submitted by Barbara in California on March 5, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly
As an educator, this is a valuable tool in evaluating learning goals and outcomes. However, it is does not provide a complete picture but rather a glimpse into the child's academic journey. Yet taken out of context, it becomes harmful in the education arena by assuming it is the only measure of growth.
Submitted by Amy in California on March 5, 2012
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST provides a limited representation of learning done in one year. Testing results are not provided fast enough or with enough detail to help me improve my teaching. All that is given is a single score for each student, rather than information about specific skills mastered or not mastered.
Submitted by Adina in California on March 5, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Overall, I align my instruction to the CST, not the other way around. I have found that a lot of my students could be more successful if tested on their overall ability as a learner rather than ability to reproduce facts and a list of steps. This test does not allow my students to be thinking for themselves. It does not promote higher learning and greater awareness of educational ability.
Submitted by Heather in California on March 4, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time
CST while aligned to the standards, doesn't assess higher-order thinking. Also, results are not returned to quickly enough.
Submitted by Vivian in California on March 4, 2012
Pros: Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
d
Submitted by Rachel in California on March 4, 2012
Pros: Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
As a Social Studies teacher, I see little benefit in students' ability to recall which document first promoted the idea of limited government. It remains much more crucial in their development as learners and members of our society to be able to analyze differences between types of government or evaluate historical actions from a perspective outside their own.
The CST exams for World History and U.S. History reduce the discipline into chunked factoids and test a breadth of material that is impossible to cover in an academic year if one values authentic learning. I almost clicked "aligned to the standards I teach" as a pro before I realized that the main reason I teach to the standards is because of the high-stakes environment created by over-reliance on standardized testing. I'd rather teach in-depth units on the Mexican Revolution, for example, or spend weeks studying the role women played in American history. Alas, those two areas of study fall outside the realm of CST "power" standards although they would infinitely engage my students on a deeper level.
Submitted by Tina in California on March 4, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
I have found errors in the 10th grade test; not many, but even one leads me to question the validity of the entire test.
Submitted by Jamie in California on March 4, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly
The test is very much (if somewhat mechanically) aligned to the state standards. The seemingly endless procession of passages can be disheartening for ELL students and struggling readers. As others have remarked, the data arrives too late to inform instructional practice in the testing year. Given how little the test measures higher order thinking, I worry that parents rely too much on it, especially when their children receive 'advanced' or 'proficient' scores.
Submitted by Su in California on February 20, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Although the CST is aligned to the California State Standards, it fails to provide teachers with meaningful and useful data that can be readily used in the classroom. Most students and teachers do not see CST results until the fall of the following year, this long wait time does not give teachers enough time to readdress common misconceptions. It also sets a low bar for proficiency and gives both students and teachers a false sense of proficiency in a subject area when many students continue to struggle with reading grade level material.
Submitted by Alice in California on February 13, 2012
Pros: Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Overall, the CST for 6th grade English tests a lot of material that has not been covered yet. There are things that are not realistic, yet asked on the test. The questions are too generic, vague, and confusing to my students. There are also not enough questions about a single topic to know whether a students understands the concept, or simply guessed right. Furthermore, it does not help me with my instruction or help me improve my practice because the students that are tested have long since moved on to seventh grade and have a new teacher. I very rarely get the information about my new group of students when they come in, so I have no idea where they are starting from and what they already know. Overall, the CST does not cut it.
Submitted by Kevin in California on February 6, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The data that is presented is clear, but not specific enough to guide my professional development. Many students who score proficient in the previous year, do not bring those proficiencies with them. This tells me the students were prepped for the test and their learning was not conceptual. This assessment as a stand alone measure is very narrow. It does not assess higher order thinking, consider 21st century work skills, or growth in behavior/maturity/resposibility/social skills.
Submitted by Pam in California on January 25, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Test results are not useful for shaping instruction. Could be helpful if standards/ assessment was related from year-to-year and if data was returned more quickly with standard-specific information for each student.
Submitted by Celeste in California on January 24, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The ELA CST takes too long to administer, and does not truly inform my teaching. The assessment is unfair in that the questions often do not truly measure student knowledge and skills. For example, if there is only one question per standard/objective, I cannot conclude that a student has zero mastery over the objective in question without further evidence. If the same student missed 4 or 5 questions on that objective, then I could be reasonably more confident they do not understand the concept or skill. Furthermore, the test seeks to assess concepts and skills in isolation, which for assessment of higher-order thinking.
Submitted by Danny in California on January 24, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
While it does not assess higher order thinking I do think that it is useful as an individual tool.
Submitted by Brittany in Tennessee on January 24, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data
I believe that my students need to be assessed in their attainment of state standards. However, I don't think that the CST's do this adequately. It is easy to administer, based upon the state standards, and provides me with basic data for me to understand my strengths and weaknesses with my students as a large group. However, it does not adequately measure the growth of my students. I feel that my greatest successes are not measured by how many students are labeled advance, but how many students improve. I also feel that it does little to measure my students higher thinking skills, creativity, and writing ability.
Submitted by Allison in California on January 23, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST Language Arts Test at the high school level has so much potential to be an invaluable tool for both students and teachers alike. Alas, its current configuration omits too much and invites some level of "teaching to the test." First, reading passages are not only condensed, but rarely address any long form reading assignments, such as novels. Most of the reading passages are excerpt driven, non-fiction pieces or texts that most ELA classrooms might never elect to cover, such as stereo instructions. While work place documents might represent a text a student might encounter, other texts like scientific papers might provide a richer, more academically diverse sampling of texts students are more likely to encounter in their classes. Second, since most longer texts like novels infrequently find their way onto the test, this encourages teachers to focus more attention on texts the students are more likely to see and less courageous in length. Also, multiple-choice tests are limited in their ability to assess higher-order thinking such as connecting seemingly unrelated or tangential topics across disciplines or assessing creativity. Writing, on-demand or portfolio, should be a driving focus for the ELA CST exam. Still, the most frustrating component of the exam centers on administration – results do not arrive in a timely fashion and cannot be used by teachers to modify curriculum during the school year with the students being tested. To this end, I strongly believe all standardized testing for the state should be reduced down to three tests: one diagnostic administered at the start of the school year to establish a benchmark, one diagnostic administered during the middle of the school year, and one summative and evaluative administered at the end. Test results for students and teachers should be arrive within two weeks of the test’s administration, so that data may be used to influence instruction during the year and inform professional development during the summer. With some tweaking, the CST ELA exam could be one of the most valuable tools in a teacher’s repertoire.
Submitted by R in California on January 23, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking
Cons: Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
CST Language Arts reading passages are far too numerous for the grade levels I teach. Students have difficulty staying focused when asked to read 10-15 lengthy passages back to back. Too much!!! Sometimes less is more!
Submitted by Meteka in California on January 22, 2012
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
As an AP English Language teacher, the CST isn't entirely useful.
Submitted by Nicole in California on January 21, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Data is presented clearly
Cons: Difficult to administer • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
Again, it's a snapshot of what my students know for that week of testing. Some might guess and do well, others try hard and it's a real look, and there are others randomly fill in bubbles and who knows how it's going to go.
For 2nd grade, the test is too long. It's an endurance test. They have to read two very long passages and compare the stories and choose alternate endings several times. If they gave them shorter stories to do the same thing, maybe it would be better, but I see my students going straight to answers when they see the length of some of the passages. I don't blame them either.
Submitted by Loribeth in California on January 21, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Cons: Difficult to administer • Results are not returned quickly • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST for English is very poorly written, particularly the questions are hard to understand. It is hard to tell if students misunderstood the question or if they didn't know this information/how to answer the question. The passages are also unnecessarily long. Students sometimes have to read over a page and then only answer 2-3 questions--so it is more a test of endurance.
Submitted by Annie in California on January 20, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer
Cons: Results are not returned quickly • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
The CST results do not come back until after the school year, making them useful for progress monitoring. In addition, the CST assesses all writing standards in multiple choice format and does not prepare students to write at the college level. It does not allow for differentiation, assess students are their current level of performance, or provide data on growth from the previous year.
Submitted by Andrew in California on January 19, 2012
Copyright © 2012–2013 Assessment Advisor. All Rights Reserved.