By Moneth G. Deposa
Variety News Staff

THE Public School System is expecting “progress and better results” in this year’s standard achievement and standard-based assessment tests among its students.
From Monday to Friday, PSS has students taking the SAT 10 while from May 7 through 11 the standard-based assessment, or SBA, test will be given.
PSS students started taking SAT 10 at the beginning of school year 2003-2004, and SBA four years ago.
It is a norm-references test that compares local students with their counterparts in the U.S. The results show if students are performing above or below the average level.
SBA is a criteria-references test. Students are examined on specific subject knowledge such as reading, writing and math.
“The expectation is always to mark student improvement because our reports have been indicating that the schools have all established adequate yearly progress and, hopefully, this year we will see better results and more progress both on SAT 10 and the SBA test,” Education Commissioner David Borja told Variety.
He said both tests assess how students performed in the classroom during the year.
The tests allow PSS to measure the effectiveness of the teaching methodology and classroom management procedures used by educators.
“It is not a measure to determine if a student is qualified to be promoted in the next grade level and it will not be reflected in their school grades…it’s an assessment for the system,” Borja said.
PSS tested out at the 35.9 percentile in 2002-2003; 46.5 in 2003-2004; 35.5 in 2004-2005; and 37.5 in 2005-2006.
“What we need to do is to show hard work. If we want to reach our goals PSS needs to close this achievement gap,” Borja said.
He added that PSS administrators have been reminding educators about the importance of “fully understanding the subjects they teach, as well as the teaching methods and classroom management styles because these influence how students learn.”
According to Borja, the test results reflect the performance of the entire system.
“SAT 10 is critical for us because we want to make sure that, as much as possible, we are getting closer and closer to our 2010 goal — that of having our students be in the 50 percentile by that year,” Borja said.