Mill Valley Schools Meet STAR Goals

The California Department of Education released the results of its annual Standardized Testing and Reporting exams (STAR) this week, with a high percentage of Marin students, and Mill Valley students in particular, outperforming state standards.

At all grade levels, and in all subjects, schools in the  met or exceeded the state’s STAR goals that students reach the “proficient” level, which means they understand and master the material of their grade level. Tam High also met or exceeded the goals in most subjects.

The Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) test is a combination of tests in different subjects given at different grade levels.

The goal is to have students at proficient or advanced levels in English, Math, Science and Social Studies. 

In Marin, 73.4 percent of students were proficient or advanced in English -- compared with 54 percent statewide. And 66.1 percent of Marin students were proficient or advanced in math, while just 50 percent were in California.

In Mill Valley, the scores were even higher. Across the Mill Valley School District, which includes , , ,  and  elementary schools, 87 percent of students are at or above proficiency in math and in language arts.

You can see the full STAR results here. The results are divided into grade levels and socioeconomic subdivisions.

At both the state and county level, the scores are on the rise from previous years. You can see local results from last year .

STAR tests were administered when each school completed 85 percent of its instructional year, according to state officials. State and federal goals from the No Child Left Behind program aim to have all students at or above a proficient level in basic language arts and math tests by 2014.

School results are used to determine a school's Academic Performance Index (API) – a measure of its performance from year to year. In addition to STAR results, for high schools the API takes into account graduation rates and performance on the California High School Exit Exam. Along with certain yearly goal targets, schools must meet API and graduation targets.

The charts below show the percentage of students proficient or advanced in each subject at each local school and grade level. Not every student is tested in every subject, depending on what subject's the students are taking. Also, the results are not released when the number of students taking a test is so small so as to make it possible to identify individual students.