Links to Additional Information  |  Finding Test Results
Term and Score Explanations  |  Comparing Test Results  |  Printing Test Results

Term and Score Explanations

Total Enrollment on First Day of Testing (Top of Report)
Schools were required to submit a California Standards Test (CST), California Modified Assessment (CMA), California Achievement Tests, Sixth Edition Survey (CAT/6 Survey), California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA), or Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS) answer document for every student enrolled on the first day of testing whether or not the student was tested. The Total Enrollment on First Day of Testing is the number of answer documents submitted for the school, district, county, or state.

Total Number Tested (Top of Report)
This is the number of students who responded to any questions on the CST, CMA, the CAT/6 Survey, or CAPA.

Total Number Tested in Selected Subgroup (Top of Report)
This is the number of students in the subgroup (selected by the reviewer) who responded to any questions on the CSTs, the CMA, the CAT/6 Survey, or the CAPA.

Reported Enrollment
This is the number of CST, CMA, CAT/6 Survey, or CAPA answer documents submitted for students who were enrolled on the first day of testing whether or not the students were tested. The number of answer documents submitted by each school were added to produce the enrollment for each district and county and for the state.

Students Tested
This is the number of students tested for the subject area reported (whether or not they received a score).

Students with Scores
This is the number of students who responded to enough questions on the CSTs, the CMA, the CAT/6 Survey, the CAPA, or the STS to receive a score. Students who tested with modifications are included in this number.

California Standards Tests (CSTs)

% of Enrollment
Schools submitted student information for every student enrolled on the first day the CSTs were administered. The percent of enrollment is the number of students tested divided by the number of students enrolled on the first day of testing. In some instances the percent may exceed 100% because of students who enrolled in a school after the first day of testing and were subsequently tested. The % of Enrollment is not reported in the End-of-Course (EOC) summary column for course/discipline-specific tests.

Mean Scale Score for CSTs
This is the arithmetic mean or average of the scale scores for all students who took content-specific CSTs without modifications. The scale scores for each grade and subject area range between 150 (low) to 600 (high). Scale scores are used to equate the CSTs from year to year and to determine the performance levels. Half of the CST questions are changed from year to year, and scale scores are used to adjust for any differences in the difficulty levels of the tests that result from this question replacement. While the average number of questions answered correctly should not be compared from year to year, scale scores and the percent of students scoring at each performance level may be compared within each grade level and subject area (e.g., fourth grade 2007 to fourth grade 2008).

% (of Students Who Scored at Each) Performance Level
California uses five performance levels to report student achievement on the CSTs:

• Advanced performance in relation to the California content standards tested
• Proficient performance in relation to the California content standards tested
• Basic performance in relation to the California content standards tested
• Below Basic performance in relation to the California content standards tested
• Far Below Basic performance in relation to the California content standards tested

The percent of students who scored at each performance level on the CSTs for English–language arts, mathematics, science, and history–social science are reported for schools, districts, counties, and the state. At grades two, three, five, six, and eight through eleven, the performance levels are based only on multiple-choice questions. The grades four and seven California English–Language Arts Standards Tests have 75 multiple-choice questions and an 8-point writing component. Scale scores and performance levels generally are based on the 83 points possible for the grade four and grade seven tests. If grade four and grade seven students have a score only for the multiple-choice questions, the scale score and performance level are based only on the multiple-choice score.

The scale score that divides basic scores from below basic is 300 for every grade and subject area. The score that divides basic scores from proficient scores is 350 for every grade and subject area. Tables that include the score range for each grade level, subject area, and performance level are available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/resources.asp. The target is for all California students to score at proficient or above.

EOC (End-of-Course)

The CSTs for Algebra I and all mathematics for grades eight through eleven, science for grades nine through eleven, and World History for grades nine through eleven are aligned with the courses the students completed or will complete by the end of the school year. The EOC column summarizes the results for all students within the school, district, county, or the state who took each course/discipline specific test.

California Standards Test Summary Report

This report provides information on the students who scored at Proficient or Advanced in all grades tested for each content area. The test content areas displayed on this report include:

• English–language arts (grade-level tests for grades two through eleven)
• History–Social Science (grade-level tests for grades eight and eleven and the end-of-course World History test for grades nine through eleven)
• Mathematics (grade-level tests for grades two through seven and the end-of-course tests for grades seven through eleven)
• Science CST (grade-level tests for grades five, eight, and ten that are used to meet federal assessment requirements)
• End-of-course Science (grades nine through eleven)

% Proficient or Advanced
This is the percent of students in all grades tested who took the CSTs for a specific content area and who scored at Proficient or Advanced.

California Modified Assessment (CMA)

Scale scores and performance levels are not available for the CMA results in 2008; however, they will be available for students in grades three through five who take the CMA in 2009 and subsequent years.

Note: A student may take either the CST or the CMA in a subject area.

% of Enrollment
Schools submitted student information for every student enrolled on the first day the CMA was administered. The percent of enrollment is the number of students with scores divided by the number of students enrolled on the first day of testing. In some instances the percent may exceed 100% because of students who enrolled in a school after the first day of testing and were subsequently tested.

Average % Correct
This is the average percent of correct answers for each test and grade level.

California Achievement Tests, Sixth Edition Survey (CAT/6 Survey) for Grades 3 and 7

National Percentile Rank (NPR) A percentile rank is the percent of scale scores for students in a national sample of students, in the same grade and tested at a comparable time of the school year, that fall below the scale score for the student. This national sample is referred to as the norm group or norming sample. For example, if a student’s scale score converts to the 60th NPR on the CAT/6 Survey Reading Test, this means that the student scored as well as or better than 60 percent of the students in the national sample (norm group). The students in the CAT/6 Survey norming sample were tested during spring 2000.

NPR for "Average" Student Score
There is no provision for producing CAT/6 Survey school, district, or state percentile ranks, and the percentile ranks of individual students cannot be averaged to produce a group NPR. Since NPRs cannot be averaged, the normal curve equivalent (NCE) scores for the individual students are averaged. This NCE score for the “average” student is then used to look up the corresponding NPR. The NPR is attributed to a hypothetical "average" student because the NCE score may not equal a score actually received by any student in the group.

% Scoring Above the 75th NPR, % Scoring at or Above the 50th NPR, and % Scoring Above the 25th NPR
These scores correspond to the percent of students in the school, district, county, or state with scores corresponding to those of students in the top quarter of the 2000 national sample (above 75th NPR), in the top half of the 2000 national sample (at or above the 50th NPR), and in the top three-quarters of the 2000 national sample (above the 25th NPR). The percent of students scoring above each level is calculated by counting the number of students with scores above a particular NPR (76th NPR and higher) and dividing the sum by the total number of students tested. Note that the percent of students scoring at or above the 50th NPR is a subset of students scoring above the 25th NPR, and the percent of students scoring above the 75th NPR is a subset of the group scoring at or above the 50th NPR. The percent of students scoring at or above the 50th NPR is sometimes referred to as the percent of students scoring at or above grade level. To obtain the percent of students in the school, district, county, or state who had scores in the lowest quarter of the national sample, subtract the percent scoring above the 25th NPR from 100.

Mean Scale Score
A table provided by the test publisher is used to convert the number of questions each student answered correctly to a scale score. The CAT/6 Survey uses a scale from 0 to 999 that begins in kindergarten and goes through grade twelve. Scale scores are useful for reporting changes over time. The CAT/6 Survey provides results in terms of scale scores for individual students and mean or average scale scores for groups of students. CAT/6 Survey scale scores cannot be compared with the scale scores for the CSTs and should not be used to compare two different subject areas, such as reading and mathematics, within the CAT/6 Survey.

Scale scores for individual students or groups of students within each subject area should increase each year on the CAT/6 Survey because the tests use a continuous scale from the lowest to the highest grade levels of the tests. The CST scale scores may not increase from year to year because each grade and subject area is scaled independently rather than through the use of a continuous scale from the lowest to the highest grade.

California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA)

Total Number Tested in CAPA
This is the number of students across all grades and CAPA levels who were assessed with the CAPA.

% Tested
This is the number of students assessed with the CAPA divided by the total number of students tested with the CSTs/CMA-CAT/6 Survey and CAPA multiplied by 100.

CAPA Level
There are five CAPA Levels: Level I is for students in grades two through eleven with the most profound disabilities; Level II is for students in grades two and three; Level III is for students in grades four and five; Level IV is for students in grades six through eight; and Level V is for students in grades nine through eleven.

Mean Scale Score
This is the arithmetic mean, or average, of the scale scores for all students who took the CAPA at this grade (state results) or at this CAPA level (school, district, and county results). The scale scores for each grade, subject area, and CAPA level range between 15 (low) to 60 (high). As with the CSTs, scale scores are used to equate the CAPA from year to year and to determine the performance levels. Half of the CAPA tasks are changed from year to year, and scale scores are used to adjust for any differences in the difficulty levels of the assessments that result from this task replacement. While the average number of questions answered correctly should not be compared from year to year, scale scores and performance levels may be compared within each CAPA level and subject area.

% (of Students Who Scored at Each) CAPA Performance Level
As do the CSTs, the CAPA uses five performance levels: advanced, proficient, basic, below basic, and far below basic. The performance levels for each CAPA level and subject area are based on scale scores that range between 15 and 60. The score dividing the basic scores from below basic is 30 for every CAPA level and subject area. The score dividing basic scores from proficient scores is 35 for every CAPA level and subject area. Tables that include the score range for each CAPA level, subject area, and performance level are available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/resources.asp. The target is for all California students to score at proficient or above.

Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS)

Scale scores and performance levels are not available for STS results in 2008; however they will be available for students in grades two through seven who take the STS in 2009 and subsequent years.

% of Enrollment
Schools submitted student information for every student enrolled on the first day the STS was administered. The percent of enrollment is the number of students with scores divided by the number of students enrolled on the first day of testing. In some instances the percent may exceed 100% because of students who enrolled in a school after the first day of testing and were subsequently tested.

Average % Correct
The average percent of correct answers for each test and grade level.

Aprenda 3

Total Number Tested
This is the total number of students in the selected summary group with at least one valid subtest.

Total Tested
This is the number of students in each grade with at least one valid subtest.

Students Tested
This is the number of students in each grade level with a valid test for the subject area reported.

RPR for “Avg.” Student Score
RPR is a reference group percentile rank that is similar to the national percentiles used for the CAT/6 Survey. While the CAT/6 Survey compares student achievement to a sample of students selected to represent the nation as a whole, the reference group used for the Aprenda 3 was selected to represent Spanish-speaking students in bilingual classes in the United States. The RPR of the “average” student estimates the individual percentile rank for a hypothetical average student in this group. (See CAT/6 Survey NPR for “Average” Student Score.)

% Scoring Above 75th RP, % Scoring Above 50th RP, and % Scoring Above 25th RP
These scores correspond to the percent of students in the school, district, county, or state with scores corresponding to those of students in the top quarter of the 2004 reference group sample (above 75th reference percentile [RP]), in the top half of the 2004 reference group sample (above the 50th RP), and in the top three-quarters of the 2004 reference group sample (above the 25th RP). The percent of students scoring above each level is calculated by counting the number of students with scores above a particular RP (76th RP and higher) and dividing the sum by the total number of students tested. Note that the percent of students scoring above the 50th RP is a subset of students scoring above the 25th RP, and the percent of students scoring above the 75th RP is a subset of the group scoring above the 50th RP. To obtain the percent of students in the school, district, county, or state who had scores in the lowest quarter of the reference group sample, subtract the percent scoring above the 25th RP from 100.