The legislation, known as Assembly Bill 484, will fully replace the current STAR testing system in the 2014-15 school year with a new statewide computerized exam that will assess students’ knowledge on an individual basis and the success of the new curriculum that many states are in the process of adopting nationwide.

“This is one of the most important and revolutionary changes to education policy, and California is the right state to lead the way,” said Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, who drafted the bill, in a press release.

The testing system — Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress — differs from STAR in style and content, according to Frank Worrell, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. Unlike STAR, which predominantly uses pencil and paper, MAPP is completely computer-based, allowing the test to adapt to the ability of the test-taker.

Worrell posed a hypothetical in which two students are given 10 questions and both students answer the first four questions correctly to explain how MAPP works.

“Then one student answers question five wrong, and the other answers it right,” Worrell said. “The first student will then get an easier question designed to figure out what that student doesn’t understand. The one who answers it right will get a more complex, challenging problem.”

Worrell added that the benefit of the test is “a more precise understanding of what students are learning and where their weaknesses are.”

MAPP also tests what students are learning in the classroom — namely, the new Common Core standard, which will be rolled out on a practice basis for some subjects in some grades for the 2013-14 school year.

The curriculum aims to make students think critically and conceptually, making them competitive for a globalized college and career environment, said Karen Hemphill, president of the Berkeley Unified School District School Board.

Hemphill added that the curriculum seeks to change the way schools teach English and mathematics. For mathematics, changes will help students gain a better conceptual understanding of arithmetic and algebra.

Meanwhile, English reading curriculums will feature less fiction. Hemphill estimates that students in middle school will read approximately 50 percent nonfiction, while high school students will read about 70 percent nonfiction.

While Hemphill said she was excited for the changes, she acknowledged there would be a districtwide learning curve as the new curriculum is implemented. To ease the transition, the district plans to host workshops for teachers and parents. It also plans to give intermediary tests this year to make sure students are prepared for next year’s MAPP.

Contact Savannah Luschei at sluschei@dailycal.org.

The post Statewide computerized exam to replace STAR test in 2014-15 school year appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Jeff Capps/Staff

The Berkeley High School student newspaper will no longer be able to support its staff of more than 100 students due to modifications in faculty time commitments — a change that prompted dozens of students and supporters to appear at the Berkeley Unified School District School Board meeting on Wednesday night.

The Berkeley High Jacket will face severe reductions beginning in the fall semester, including fewer staff members and print issues. Because the faculty advisor of the newspaper took on an increased course load, the amount of students who can participate in the journalism class responsible for producing the newspaper will be drastically reduced.

“I find it appalling that the school would not provide a faculty advisor to 130 students for two full periods,” said Annie Alcott, parent of a former Jacket writer, at the school board meeting. “Anyone who knows BUSD knows that if there is a will, there is money that can be found.”

According to Berkeley High Principal Pasquale Scuderi, there are currently 42 students enrolled in the journalism class — less than half of the 92 students who had requested the class last spring. According to Scuderi, an increase in funding to support 40 percent of the advisor’s time would return the paper’s capacity, something the school cannot support.

The student-run newspaper is independently financed outside of the faculty advisor’s pay and currently publishes 18 times a year, though students said the current cuts could limit the paper to printing only four times this school year.

The reduction in both staff and time available to work on the paper will have consequences in production such as publishing under half as often and placing more writing responsibilities on the editors, said managing editor and senior Abbey Chaver.

“Our priority is that production is as great as it is now,” Chaver said. “We just want to be able to keep our staff.”

However, Scuderi said the faculty advisor for the class, Dharini Rasiah, will still continue to devote 20 percent of her allocated work time to managing the newspaper. What is actually changing is that extra time the advisor had last year for media production — not specifically dedicated to the paper, but often so — was shifted to another staff member, creating space for the advisor to teach another class and reducing the capacity for the adviser to supervise as many students as before.

“I wouldn’t call this a cut, but an inability to fund an increase. It comes down to funding the paper or funding a credit recovery class to help a student,” Scuderi said. “We will have to be creative and artful in keeping the paper where we are accustomed to having it.”

The post Berkeley High School newspaper cuts cause concern for students appeared first on The Daily Californian.