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<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Dear BHS Families:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Tomorrow we begin administering the STAR tests for our 9th
through 11th grade students. While I know that many of you have heard from Superintendent
Huyett and BHS Vice Principal Vernon Walton regarding STAR Testing, I wanted to
add my thoughts toward our collective request that your students participate in
earnest in this week's exams. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The STAR tests, like several other types of performance
measures, are not without flaws, yet often in the area of education we allow
the absence of a completely perfect measurement tool to justify not attempting
to measure student progress at all. We are all cognizant of the fact that the
results of the STAR exams are not the only indicators or determiners of whether
our school is a good school or not, but I personally feel that there are valuable
pieces of data to be found and utilized in the results of these assessments.
These results, coupled with increased progress in creating site-based formative
and summative assessments, as well as common curriculum, will move us toward a
place that is slightly less anecdotal and more quantitative in terms of
monitoring and assessing our collective progress with kids. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Earning a valid Academic Performance Index, a rating given
based on STAR results and participation rates, will be critical to our securing
of a long-term accreditation when the visiting team from the Western Association
of Schools and Colleges assesses our school this coming fall. It is unlikely
that a six-year accreditation would be granted to a school without a firm API
and thus the staff would be subject to committing to or sustaining current
levels of professional development time to the accreditation process; time that
could be tendered to more immediate site needs such as more specific course
outlines, pacing guides, and in-house common assessments; tools that can
provide real-time feedback for use in revising and adjusting curriculum and
lesson design in ways that are immediately beneficial for kids. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Standardized testing invokes a huge variety of responses and
opinions though the existence of such assessments remains a significant part of
the secondary and higher education experience on things like the SAT, ACT, GRE,
GMAT, LSAT, etc. STAR affords us, at the very least, a practicum for those
upcoming experiences and environments, and also yields information that allows
us to compare our students' progress against the progress of students
state-wide on a standards-based assessment. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Student performance in grades 9-11 on STAR can be a strong
predictor of performance or a needs assessment of sorts where the
aforementioned exams are concerned. In addition, it allows us to continue to
monitor disparities in grade-level performance between groups of kids on our campus
when disaggregated by socioeconomic status, gender, disabilities, or race.
While STAR may not reflect the full scale and scope of student learning and
experience at Berkeley High School it is nonetheless a consistent cross-school
measure. Again, while it may not be the lone piece of information that defines
our school, STAR results do, in my opinion have value and relevance. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I ask you to partner with us this week to have students complete
these exams. As medical practitioners use multiple indicators to assess their patients'
levels of wellness, I similarly believe that STAR testing is a single, but
critical measure that educators should employ when determining whether their
student's levels of mastery and comprehension warrant a clean bill of health or
a more specific diagnosis. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Respectfully,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Pasquale Scuderi<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Principal<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Berkeley High School<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>(510) 644-6120<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>________________<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Diane Douglas, Marguerite
Fa-Kaji and Pat Anderson are the parent-volunteer facilitators of the etree;
please direct any questions to them at <a href="mailto:bhs-owner@lmi.net"
title="mailto:bhs-owner@lmi.net"><font color=navy><span style='color:navy'>bhs-owner@lmi.net</span></font></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>BHS etree archives: <a
href="http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/"
title="http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/"><font color=navy><span
style='color:navy'>http://lists.lmi.net/pipermail/bhs/</span></font></a>; BHS
PTSA website: <a href="http://www.bhs.berkeleypta.org/"
title="http://www.bhs.berkeleypta.org/"><font color=navy><span
style='color:navy'>http://www.bhs.berkeleypta.org/</span></font></a>. To
unsubscribe from the etree, send an email to <a
href="mailto:bhs-request@lmi.net" title="mailto:bhs-request@lmi.net"><font
color=navy><span style='color:navy'>bhs-request@lmi.net</span></font></a> with
one word only in the subject line: 'unsubscribe'. To post a
message, send to: <a href="mailto:bhs@lmi.net" title="mailto:bhs@lmi.net"><font
color=navy><span style='color:navy'>bhs@lmi.net</span></font></a></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 color=black face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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