Concerning Test Scores
Chrysalis has several beliefs about standardized test scores.
We believe that the STAR test is an accurate (though limited) measure of a student’s command of a certain body of skills. We use test results as feedback in improving the following year’s instructional program.
We believe that the only appropriate way to use test scores in the evaluation of a school’s program is to track a student’s progress from one year to the next, like a movie, rather than as a snapshot. This method reveals the following about our 2008-2009 test scores:
In Language Arts, our students averaged a 16 point rise in their scale scores.
In Mathematics, our students averaged a 14 point rise in their scale scores.
We believe in our academic program and believe that many fruits of our program are invisible to the STAR test. Therefore, we are determined not to let STAR test scores drive our academic program. (Our API was 871 for 2008-2009, second highest elementary school score in the county.) We were founded as a science and nature school. Science is just a small component in the STAR tests and nature is not part of it at all. If high test scores were our goal, we would drop nature and spend less of our time on science. We believe science and nature are fundamental to a child’s development and we are not about to surrender this belief in pursuit of the highest possible test scores.
We believe that the current focus on test scores (in snapshot mode) is warping public education in a way that slowly but relentlessly deadens the spirits of students and teachers alike. A significant percentage of Chrysalis families came to Chrysalis because they found their former schools’ overwhelming focus on test scores suffocating to their children’s love of learning. They voice gratitude for Chrysalis and our focus on “encouraging the light within each student to shine brighter.”