In the spring of 1998, the Delaware Department of Education, along with Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, began administering the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP). This assessment tool provides educators with an accurate measure of student achievement relative to Delaware’s rigorous content standards. The tests are tied to the Delaware content standards.

The Delaware Student Testing Program is designed to do the following:

• serve as a measure of progress toward the Delaware standards;
• ensure that students can apply their academic skills to realistic, everyday problems;
• promote better instruction and curriculum by providing timely reports of students’ strengths and weaknesses;
• serve as a primary indicator in the statewide accountability system;
• help districts deal with the issue of who should and should not be promoted from grade to grade.

Merit’s language arts and math software programs correlate to the Delaware Content Standards and can help students prepare for the DSTP. The content and format of Merit’s programs can help students develop and strengthen their test-taking skills as well as their reading, writing and math skills.

Merit reading software has been proven -- through rigorous, scientifically based research -- to increase both student reading comprehension and standardized test scores. Merit research study findings reveal that education software is an effective tool to improve test scores and academic performance.



Published: May 2005