Computer test to assess Maine students’ skills

PORTLAND — In the years when students are not participating in the Maine Educational Assessment exams, teachers will be able to assess students’ skills using a new Internet testing program.

The program, called Schools and Technology for Assessment and Reflection, or STAR, is designed to test students in writing, math, reading and so-called “complex tasks” involving multiple skills.

What makes STAR distinctive from other testing programs is its reliance on computers.

All of the scoring and discussion among teachers takes place via the Internet. Student work, such as hand-printed essays from third-grade pupils, is scanned onto computers and made available for scoring to teachers with the proper password.

Test results will be compiled in databases that districts can compile in ways that are not possible with assessment tests that provide scores on printed reports. And teachers are being encouraged to discuss student work and instruction methods with one another through e-mail and online bulletin board discussions.

STAR testing for students in third, fifth, seventh and ninth grades will be phased in during the next two years. About 1,700 third-grade pupils from 18 school districts in eastern and southern Maine are participating in a pilot test.

Next year, about 8,000 students are expected to become involved in the program, which is voluntary for school districts.

State law requires school districts to assess locally how well their students are meeting a detailed set of mandated standards, known as Learning Results, during the off years of the Maine Educational Assessment test. The MEA is given in grades four, eight and 11.

“Four, eight and 11 are pretty big jumps,” said Robert Shafto, executive director of the Maine Center for Educational Services, which developed the STAR test with Community Network Systems in Falmouth. “Every district is being required to fill in those gaps.”

Everything is computerized, including the delivery of test results, so teachers and schools will find out within a matter of weeks, rather than months, how they and their students have performed. That allows teachers to tailor instruction for particular students.

“It’s diagnostic for me as a teacher,” Shafto said. “I want to know how these kids are doing every year, not every three years. I want it fast enough to do something about it.”

Existing tests, such as the MEA, offer results too late to help a teacher understand the particular needs of, for example, a third-grade pupil while the pupil still is in the third grade, Shafto said.

“Almost no teacher I know uses that” to change instruction, he said. “It’s just a number.”