STAR Testing May Affect Your Senior Incentive

Talawanda assistant principal Chris Rhoton recently brought up the idea that STAR (Standardized Testing And Reporting Program) testing scores would be part of the senior incentive in the fourth quarter of the 2013-2014 school year.

Rhoton said seniors tend to “blow off the star test and bomb it just terribly.” He said seniors don’t think that the test matters, and think of them as a waste of time.

“One of the things the state has started doing is using diagnostic tests [like the star test] as new measures of growth,” said Rhoton. “A lot of that is being tied back to teacher performance due to the new teacher evaluation system. Half of that evaluation is what you see us doing in classrooms, when we are sitting there observing teachers. The other half is the growth the students show. One of the more reliable methods of doing that is the star test.”

The state views the results of the test and rates each teacher’s performance. “For example, none of the seniors would want Mrs. Squance to look like, from the states eyes, she’s not doing a great job because they just didn’t want to do the test,” said Rhoton.

What Rhoton looking to do is make sure that students didn’t blow off the tests and did not “show regression,” and to show that students are at least able to maintain the score that you have gotten before.

“We just need to make sure the students are taking the star test seriously and by linking the scores to fourth quarter senior incentive, seniors will hopefully take things more seriously.” said Rhoton.

Linking the star tests to the senior incentive should take effect by the fourth quarter, but  Rhoton says as of now, it is just an idea.