TEST SCORES* VALIDATE RAA’S ACADEMIC PROGRAM

Each year students across the country take what are commonly known as achievement tests. These tests are designed to measure how well students are learning standard scholastic information compared to their peers nationwide. Test scores correspond to grade levels so that educators are able to see if their students are learning at the appropriate level. These grade equivalencies reflect the norm or average performance across the test base.

Individual scores, certainly, are subject to a number of variables including socio-economic background, degree of parental support and encouragement, stability of the family environment, and student motivation. Parents and teachers can learn a great deal from a student’s scores in terms of areas of strength and needed improvement.

Scores are reported in percentile, which means, for example, that if a student scores 80 percentile in math, he is performing better than 80% of the test base and not as well as 20% If a student scores 50 percentile in math, he is performing better than 50% of the test base and not as well as 50%, which is the average. Test scores in different subject areas -- math, language, general information -- are combined to produce a composite score for each student.

Students at Redding Adventist Academy are scoring 25% to 30% above the norm. Principal Tim Erich says, “This is very good news. Our students are scoring on average from the mid 70s to the low 80s.” RAA as a school body scored better than 76% of the test base. This performance is consistent for the school across time.

[The testing system in general begs the question: where are the schools in the 90 percentile range? In fact, there are schools that only admit students who score in the 90 percentile range. One such school is in the Thousand Oaks area in southern California.]

RAA test scores also show a continual progression year to year when compared to the grade level equivalency. For example, this year’s fifth grade class tested just below 7th grade level in their composite scores. As fourth graders, they tested just below 6th grade level; as third graders, just below fourth grade level; as second graders, just below third grade level. Each year these students on average have continued testing above their grade level.

Yet the grade equivalencies improve even more dramatically as the students enter junior high. “Traditionally around the sixth grade the students’ grade equivalencies really start to jump,” says Principal Erich. “The SDA curriculum and the advantages that it gives students become most evident at this juncture. This is when we really begin to see the benefits of the foundation that has been laid.”

By the time RAA students are in the tenth grade, they are already testing at college freshman level.
In the most recent testing, composite scores for eighth and ninth graders showed grade equivalency slightly higher than twelfth grade. “We don’t want to read too much into this,” says Principal Erich, “but it is an indication that RAA is excelling and that our students are maintaining high aptitude throughout high school.

One student came to RAA after going through some difficult life adjustments. The student’s test scores were initially well below grade level. However, each year the scores climbed at least one grade level until the student was testing at or above grade level. According to the parent, the child was average in motivation. “This speaks highly for the teachers along the way,” says the parent.

Another parent reacts to the testing: “We want our child to reach his full potential as both a student and a human being. For us, RAA is instrumental in reaching that goal. Seeing the improvement in his test scores just proves what we’ve felt from the moment we stepped foot on the RAA campus -- RAA is the school for our child. From academics to music and extracurricular activities, from dedication and excellence in teaching to a commitment to community service, RAA opens our son’s eyes to the world and provides the guidance to explore that world.”

While academics is the cornerstone of any top school, there are other factors which make a good school great. “RAA is certainly focused on academics,” says Tammy Turk, parent and teacher, “but the school strives to create a blend of academics and a strong Christian education. One of the greatest attributes of RAA is the caring network, the broad network of parents that contribute. It’s the best I’ve ever seen in a school.”

Pastor Kris Widmer said recently from the pulpit, “We praise God for 75 years of Adventist education in Redding. We are blessed to have RAA teaching our children and educating them in the things of God.”

* Results are based on longitudinal studies for students attending RAA more than one year, excluding those with learning differences.