Drop in SBAC scores urges administration action

Maggie Liu, Asst. A&E Editor|October 17, 2018

Diamond Bar High School’s class of 2019 saw an overall decrease in scores on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test compared to class of 2018.

The SBAC test is an accumulative electronic exam given multiple times in elementary and middle school, but only junior year of high school. These tests focus on two subjects: English language arts and mathematics.

Last year there was a surprising leap in test scores for DBHS students. However, scores have dropped significantly in both test sections this year.

On the English language arts test, Brahma scores decreased by more than four percent—74.19 percent of seniors scored proficient or above on the test, compared to 78.86 percent last year, with 25.81 percent of students scored below state standards.

The biggest drop in scores was in the math section of the SBAC: 68.86 percent of students scored proficient or above on the exam compared to 74.69 percent last year. In this section, 31.14 percent of students did not meet state standards.

Although this year’s seniors did not perform as well as last year, DBHS still scored well above the state average. The overall state average for proficient and above on English language arts was 53.96 percent and 31.37 for mathematics.

The school administration has plans to improve student scores in the upcoming 2019 tests.

“One of the things that will help prepare the students will be that students in some classrooms are currently doing some Illuminate online testing,” Instructional Dean Denise Loera said.

The results from these tests will be used to aid teachers in understanding what materials to review.

“The teachers are dialoguing about the common assessments and are looking for any gaps in understanding by the students,” Loera said. “They can do what we call spiral review on content that the students need help with.”