The second part of STAR includes questions intended to reflect the state's new reading, writing and math standards. All students in grades 2 through 11 were supposed to take the test this spring. The Stanford-9 norm group consisted of about 500,000 students who took the test in 1995. So if your child scored at the 75th percentile, he or she did better than 75 percent of the students in the same grade of the national sample. A Norm-referenced tests allow school and district administrators to spot student achievement trends or unusual spikes or dips in scores.
Educators can also see how their schools rate relative to the rest of the nation.
Parents and teachers can use the results to spot academic weaknesses and gauge how students rate against the rest of the nation. Q Students at my neighborhood school scored at the 85th percentile on math. But at my friend's school across town, students reached only the 25th percentile. A Results can vary for a variety of reasons. Family income and teacher quality are two of the strongest predictors of test scores.