The SOLAR ^® - Standards of Learning Assessment Resource system by Consulting, Services and Solutions Group, Inc. was the first test assessment on-line tool designed with active (not retired) teachers and school administrators involved from the beginning, to meet the exacting requirements of standardized testing initiatives. Participation by active teachers and administrators provided us with the proper insight of the most current challenges of today's teacher in the classroom and administrators at the school site and division/district office. This participation by active teachers/administrators in the design of SOLAR framework, greatly assisted in our development of a highly intuitive solution for teacher use in the classroom and administrator use in the building or central office site, therefore requiring a short learning curve.

SOLAR helps to level the playing field for ALL students at a school site regardless of location and demographics (Urban, Suburban, Rural) by pin-pointing student achievement gaps by standard of learning content subject areas, by reporting category and skills that require additional teacher/administrator focus, and/or provides the insight to building and/or division administrators required to for appropriate curriculum and/or instructional delivery.  SOLAR provides insight to resource challenged classrooms and/or building for appropriate Administrator intervention with the teaching staff to level the playing field for each student. We find that simply re-teaching what did not work over a six or nine period of instruction is not necessarily the answer to achieving 100% of the students demonstrating mastery and retention of a minimum set of skills prior to the student undertaking an actual state-wide standards of learning assessment test.

We released a powerful expansion of the SOLAR data warehousing capabilities during 2005 with the official release of the SOLAR Data Disaggregator component for data mining actual state test results data or Standards of Learning test results.  Initially, the offering allowed the review and analysis of actual test data for four year periods, and then it was expanded to provide a plethora of ad-hoc reports by subgroup or subgroup combinations. Now this powerful component provides our licensed users with multi-year achievement gap reports by sub-group and sub-group combinations by Standard of Learning content areas and skill (SPBQ) - by district, by building, by classroom/teacher and by individual student report.  The system allows reviews of performance over multiple years from within the SOLAR interface utilizing the same institutive navigation found in SOLAR without the clumsiness of checking your version of MS Access or Excel.  A user only needs Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2 and above, Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.5 and above.

During the 2005/06 academic year we added over 13,000 new aligned "high value" English items and over 8,000 new Mathematics and EOC Math items (Alg I, Alg II, Geometry) to the SOLAR item bank.  We also plan the expansion of the science item bank by thousands of items this academic year.  To complement these additions, we plan the release of an expanded version of the current teacher classroom assessment module for online assessments to include a paper-based testing and a school site scanner scoring option for teacher created assessments, quizzes and exams.

SOLAR provides District Administrators (content leaders/coordinators) the ability to formulate division-wide diagnostic benchmark on-line testing, or print the on-line test session for paper-based scan answer document testing and automatic scoring by SOLAR. The system addresses the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in numerous ways.  First it is an excellent tool for pre and post assessment, providing the teacher and administrators with early insight as to which students could potentially be left behind because the minimum skills required by the student(s) were not mastered or retained during instruction. The system allows school district/division administrators to set-up six (6) and nine (9) week assessments that are aligned with the mandated state and school district curriculum.  District Administrators are able to author district-wide nine (9) or six (6) assessment for individual grades levels, or by end of course and by core subject area (s).  The SOLAR system even allows off-grade level testing for special students (Challenged and Gifted) and allows individual or group testing. These features provide invaluable information regarding the gaps in student mastery and retention, and provides an opportunity for early intervention and review of materials with a more exacting approach, versus the shotgun approach to intervention of the past. With the NCLB Act it is no longer sufficient to applaud 70% - 90% of the student body that masters the standards of learning by attaining at least 60% of the answers correct on the state standards of learning test, while 20% - 30% of the student body is left behind because they did not attain at least 60% of the answers correct on the test.  SOLAR provides the tools to bring about a level playing field for your entire student body.  The SOLAR system also assists with Title 1 requirements that parents are informed of the quality of their children's education. This requirement is achieved by SOLAR's powerful skill based report card that is provided for teacher-parent conferences and also provided with the SOLAR parental online secure access capability.  This allows for parental access with their password from home, the job, at the library or at a school facility.  A parent has access to their child's performance on each standard of learning and skill being assessed in a classroom.  This feature enhances communication between teachers and parents, minimizing parental surprise at teacher's or guidance office conferences.

SOLAR assists schools and school divisions/districts meet the "public reporting" requirements of the NCLB Act with the many comprehensive performance and usage reports generated by subject area, standard of learning, essential skills, reporting category,  school building and by classroom to name a few. 

Some additional features of SOLAR include, but are not limited to:

• Access to an aligned Test item database of over 20,000 test items and growing;
• Access to released state DOE test items, if desired and specifically requested by the school district;
• Access to other test item databases, if you are licensed to use the materials;
• Ability to Export test data for reporting with other reporting tools such as Excel, Access, Crystal, more;
• Schools/Teachers are able to submit “assessment” test items for validation and entry into the SOLAR standards of learning test item database;
• Powerful reporting option for disaggregating the assessment data by LEP, gender, ethnicity, socio economic status;
• Students, Teachers, Administrators and Parents receive instant feedback regarding test performance;
• Teachers, Students and Administrators consistently say the system is user friendly and intuitive;
• Student information data entry is minimal because of our turn-key approach;
• SOLAR allows teachers to attach manipulatives such as a calculator; periodic table, a website hyperlink, and more to a test session;
• Student progress and skill inventory reports are accessible by follow-on grade level teachers;
• Usage Reports are provided to Administrators by building, by grade, by class, by teacher;  and by student;
• Unlimited student diagnostic benchmark testing;
• Test items are contributed to the item bank, and continually being enhanced by active users of the system;
• Test item alignment is continually being maintained and enhanced by active system users and contributors to the SOLAR item data bank
• School Site Access Licensing provides unlimited teacher/administrator, student access;
• The Annual School Site Access License fee is less than any competing product pricing being offer on the market;
• Additional Documentation and SOLAR events

To receive additional information and/or schedule an on-site demonstration, send an e-mail to info@cssg.com and we will contact you to provide additional information and arrange either an on-line demonstration or an on-site demonstration.

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