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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p><font size=2 color=red face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:red'>Do not reply to this email, contact Richard Ng,</span></font><font size=2 color="#1f497d" face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> <a href="mailto:richardng@berkeley.net">richardng@berkeley.net</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Dear BHS Families:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>With STAR testing approaching on Tuesday I wanted to share some thoughts regarding why I believe that staff, students, parents, and the community must make a concerted effort to support earnest participation and performance on these assessments at Berkeley High School. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The case I'm making here is not the case that these assessments, nor any other assessments are perfect, but rather that these assessments can provide us some valuable understanding of how <i><span style='font-style:italic'>our </span></i>instruction translates into mastery on a particular measure of grade-level standards, and how consistency in participation and growth on these assessments can benefit this school as a whole.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>These assessments afford us an opportunity to see how our particular brand of instruction and approach to content standards translates in terms of proficiency on an assessment given to students and schools up and down the state.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>My expectation is not and has never been that we teach to a particular test, nor will I ever advocate that. However, we <i><span style='font-style:italic'>will</span></i> teach to clear and articulable content standards, and as as we continue to get more adept and creative in how we are teaching and delivering those standards, we <i><span style='font-style:italic'>should</span></i> see improvement in performance on these and other assessments, including the wide variety of quality, homegrown, formative and interdisciplinary assessments that many of our departments and communities already use or are in the process of developing. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Elsewhere, we have what I believe are compelling organizational, community, and resource incentives to participate fully in these assessment programs. Many of the creative things we do around professional development and instruction at BHS depend on the structures we have been able to put into place with grant monies from federal and local sources. The largest of those grants, the Smaller Learning Communities Grant (which funds teacher leadership and data support in all of our programs and <i><span style='font-style:italic'>not</span></i> just in the small schools) expires at the end of the next school year, and the administration will be actively looking for ways in which we can sustain things like our professional development in the teacher-facilitated, teacher-led professional learning community model we currently employ. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>We are beginning to intensively explore numerous other opportunities for funding sources to bring in, or in some cases <i><span style='font-style:italic'>maintain</span></i>, programs that range from professional development for teachers to social and emotional supports for kids. Regardless of one's particular opinions about standardized testing, STAR results, which produce scores on the Academic Performance Index (API), play a significant role in making us competitive for external revenue via grants as those scores constitute a metric common to every public high school in the state. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>BHS needs to be eligible for various grants as those sources can help sustain the space and capacity we need to remain innovative and effective in our work with kids. Not generating and growing an API score leaves us without one of the key common measures that competitive funding sources look at when considering the allocation of supplemental funding. An API score is, and will continue to be, not the lone factor, but a <i><span style='font-style:italic'>key</span></i> factor in our applications for support to those unfamiliar with other aspects of our programs. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The issue of standardized testing sometimes creates controversy and resistance, particularly in places where these types of assessments yield a teaching and learning culture that begins and ends with an emphasis on a single<i><span style='font-style:italic'> </span></i>test, and makes that single measure the driving force of all instruction.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>This is not the case at BHS and my expectations for teachers and students with regard to STAR testing can in no way be plausibly argued as a move in that direction. Our calendar demonstrates that the effort we are asking teachers and students to put into these exams requires a minimal expenditure of instructional time. With roughly 12 hours of testing next week <b><i><span style='font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>the exams will constitute approximately 1% of our instructional time for the year</span></i></b>. I see this as a more than reasonable amount of time to invest in a process that allows us to see how our school and our methods of instruction translate in terms of performance on the same measure that students and high schools across the state use to assess proficiency in relation to content standards.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>If we are increasingly conscious of the standards, and carefully consider the grade level rigor that they call for when designing our own unique approaches to teaching them, the skills and concepts we endow our kids with should translate to success on both the assessments we create and the ones we take in common with other schools. Quality, multi-faceted instruction should translate to an ability to demonstrate proficiency on everything from assessments like extended writing assignments and performances as well as on multiple choice exams.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Some argue that multiple choice questions, like those featured in the STAR assessments, inherently lack value and are simply not rigorous as they cannot test more sophisticated concepts and do not require critical or rigorous thought. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, author of Driven By Data, responds by saying that, "While this observation seems intuitively obvious it is incorrect." Valid and rigorous assessment comes in many forms and where open-ended, or project-based assessments have their rigor defined by rubrics, multiple-choice questions define their rigor through options. Multiple choice and open-ended or performance assessments "measure different aspects of rigor of the same standard." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Open-ended assessment "requires putting thoughts into your own words," he writes, while multiple choice assessment involves, "distinguishing critically between various plausible actions. These two angles simulate real life and assessment environments that students will face in the future." He concludes that a a truly rigorous test can be created from both open-ended responses with challenging rubrics as well as with multiple-choice questions or other formats with challenging options. Both test critical skills, and when it comes to effective and rigorous assessment strategies, both are often "necessary, complimentary sides of the same coin." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>I offer this not as a grand defense of the multiple choice format, but as a way of demonstrating that the argument that our school should neglect an assessment or the useful information it may in fact provide simply because it is provided in a particular format is an overly simplistic view. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>At the end of the day we know that a single measurement cannot in itself adequately articulate all of the deeply meaningful teaching and learning that happens at this high school. We also know that the common formative assessments and projects we continue to design ourselves will provide quicker and more direct forms of analysis that can in fact be used diagnostically, collaboratively, and more efficiently for the benefit of students and teachers throughout the school year. That said, I see STAR testing and STAR results as a key component of an overall package of assessment and information that, when coupled with the professional judgement of teachers, provides a rich and well-rounded foundation for making evidence-based instructional decisions that will elevate the abilities of all our students in a positive way.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>I would deeply appreciate your support and assistance in making this week productive and successful. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Pasquale Scuderi<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Principal, Berkeley High School<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#1f497d" face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:navy'>______________<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:navy'>Pat Anderson, Diane Douglas, Marguerite Fa-Kaji and Lisa Sibony 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=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";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><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#1f497d" face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p><font size=2 color="#1f497d" face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p></div></body></html>