Category Archives: Student Assessment

Old Town Academy Named a 2012 Honor Roll School

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2012 CBEE CA Schools Honor Roll

April 16, 2013 • Congratulations on your CBEE Honor Roll selection

Dear Honor Roll Principal:

On behalf of California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE), I write to congratulate you on the outstanding success your school has made in raising student academic achievement. After an extensive analysis of student achievement data for every public school in California, your school stood well above the rest in getting your students to grade level proficiency and beyond.

It is for that reason we have named you a California Business for Education Excellence Honor Roll School for 2012.

The list of Honor Roll schools continues to grow thanks to the hard work and effective practices of thousands of excellent principals, teachers and support personnel in our public schools….

2012 Honor Roll Sponsors 

CBEE Sponsors

Continue reading →

Student Survey Results for 2011-2012

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Below are the results of our student survey question: “How Does OTA Compare to Your Old School?” As a brand new school we had a priceless opportunity to ask all our students to compare their experience at OTA with their recent memory of day to day life at other schools (though in the end we asked students in grades 2-8 only). We also asked students to rank their favorite—and least favorite— subjects. That data coming soon.
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We think the results of the Student Survey question are as important as the California Standards Tests (CST) that measure skills and knowledge in Math & English/Language Arts. Those tests are useful (and our 2011-2012 results are encouraging); but they do not measure whether the joy of learning that all children bring to Kindergarten is being kept alive, and nourished, at OTA. This student survey question does.
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At our Orientations we promised parents that children would like coming to school at OTA. Continue reading →

California Standards Test Scores Arrive This Week • OTA “School Quality Snapshot”

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Dear OTA Families:
The California Standards Test (CST) results are out and your child’s scores should be arriving by mail this week. Since OTA does not have two years of test results we do not have growth data from the State tests; but we do have the breakdown on how many of last year’s students scored Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, or Far Below Basic in Math & English/Language Arts.
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I’ve included two graphs below summarizing our scores in Math & English/Language Arts. In a separate post we’ll share the Results of our 2011-2012 Student Survey, which we take as seriously as the CST scores (Download a Parent Guide to the CST).
  • CA Standards Test Results in English/Language Arts (85% of OTA students scored Advance or Proficient in English/Language Arts: 121/142 )
  • CA Standards Test Results in Math (84% of OTA students scored Advanced or Proficient in Math: 119/142)

“School Quality Snapshot”: You can download the California Dept of Education’s  report card on our first year of operation here: OTA Accountability Report Card. Our first year API (Academic Performance Index) Score is 884.

These school-wide scores for our first year of operation are very good and the question arises, can OTA take any credit for these results? Yes, OTA teachers deserve credit for the high percentages of students who scored advanced or proficient in Math and English/Language Arts.

  • We tested our students in the latest possible testing window; so students had almost an entire year within our classrooms and labs before they sat down to take the exam.
  • If we had serious flaws in our academic programs or classroom instruction the test results would have revealed them.
  • We started the year with 191 students and ended the year with 217. Most of our students spent the majority of the school year at OTA.
But the real measure of a good academic quality assurance system is whether it can answer these two questions: Continue reading →

Summer Reading List — “Independent Reading Pie” Exams

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Dear Old Town Academy Students:
Below is a list of Core Knowledge Books for grades K-8.  Please choose and read at least one book from the list for the grade you are entering this September. When we start school you will be take an Independent-Reading-Pie Exam on your book where you sit down with your teacher and answer these questions:

  1. What is the title of your book?
  2. Who is the author?
  3. What is the genre? [for example: Fairy tale, Fable, Science, History, Biography, Short Story?]
  4. Did you like the book? [Please rate it from 1 (not my favorite) to  5 (one of the best books I’ve ever read)]  Why or why not?
  5. Now your teacher will choose a page from the book, read a passage and ask you to discuss it. If you can do this you’re done!  That’s how you earn credit for your first Independent Reading project this summer. [Note: during the school year longer Independent Reading books will be broken up into smaller “slices” of, e.g. 50 pages]

Your teacher may also give you a chance to write about the book/s you read this August, or illustrate it with your own drawings, or do other summer-reading-related Projects.

AUGUST READING CHOICES

KINDERGARTEN (Read with a parent or guardian or by yourself)

King Midas and the Golden Touch
The Velveteen Rabbit
A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus (Adler)
The Legend of the Teddy Bear (Murphy)

FIRST GRADE (Read with a parent or guardian or by yourself)

Hansel and Gretel
Rapunzel
A Picture Book of Paul Revere (Adler)
Red, White, and Blue: Story of the American Flag (Herman)

Continue reading →

Test-Taking Cements Knowledge Better Than Studying, Researchers Say

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Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

via Test-Taking Cements Knowledge Better Than Studying –NYTimes.com.

Testing kids is an effective way to help lock in skills and we do it all the time in our Core Learning Lab (with programs like IXL Math); but students also need to learn to make their own tests (an open-notes reading exam where they can use their own Concept Maps is a great way to teach that skill). After they leave school nobody is going to hand them a test as they try to master new knowledge or skills.

The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods [like concept mapping.] Continue reading →