In their eagerness to prove that public schools are failing, Connecticut’s leaders have agreed to passing marks on Common Core tests that are guaranteed to fail most students.
Wendy Lecker explains that the “cut scores” (or passing marks) were selected with full knowledge that most students would fail.
Outgoing state commissioner Stefan Pryor (soon to be state commissioner in Rhode Island) and his aides:
“……voted to set the SBAC [Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium] cut scores so that only 41 percent of 11th graders will pass in English and 33 percent will pass in math. In elementary and middle school, only 38-44 percent of students will pass in English and only 32-39 percent will pass in math.
“Standardized test passing rates are based on arbitrary and political decisions about how many students decision-makers want to fail. SBAC admits it cannot validate whether its tests measure college readiness until it has data on how current test takers do in college. In fact, SBAC declares that the achievement levels “do not equate directly to expectations for `on-grade’ performance” and test scores should only be used with multiple other sources of information about schools and students.
“Since the vast majority of factors affecting test scores occur outside school, test scores are poor measures of school quality, teacher quality and student performance.
“Yet, with his November vote, Pryor guaranteed that many successful Connecticut students and schools will now arbitrarily be declared failures.”
Since NAEP state testing began in 1992, Connecticut has consistently been one of the top three states in the nation, along with Massachusetts and Néw Jersey. Yet most of its students, teachers, and schools will arbitrarily be stigmatized as “failures,” by design.
“SBAC admits it cannot validate whether its tests measure college readiness until it has data on how current test takers do in college.”
I think that just opened the door for this administration, politicians and the billionaires who own them to declare that standardized testing must be mandated at every level in college.
Of course… more money to be had!
Perfectly logical and perfectly stupid.
Equally indicative of bungled federal investments in Consortium tests, SBAC declares that the achievement levels “do not equate directly to expectations for `on-grade’ performance” and test scores should only be used with multiple other sources of information about schools and students.
Hot air, and a cynical claim given that theSBAC and PARCC tests are supposed to produce comparable scores and tests from both of these testmakers are now embedded NCLB accountability in lieu of the statewide tests in math and ELA.
Of course they are pushing for tests that create failure – just last night I saw a commercial that was very rhetorically narrated about 40,000 kids in failing schools in Connecticut, funded by Families for Excellent Schools – an astro-turf non-profit profit funded by the usual suspects — not parents, teachers and student grass root efforts – of course not. I’m from NJ and its running here. If you google these douchebags, you’ll see that something like $40 Million has been dedicated to running these commercials alone. Lots of money ill-spent; unless it gets some more for profit charters into the state, then for those profiteers, it was a sweet deal.
Here we have another pitiful example of stacking the deck against public education. The goal is greed for a few at the expense of many children. Are there any honest people left in government anymore?
And I would assume, Donna, that the $40 Million to fund these mendacious ads comes from the public purse, from the ADA money dedicated to each student.
This is exactly what the Gulen Schools across the nation do with a different advertising scheme…but always using taxpayer funds to advertise, to import foreign ‘teachers’ (all Middle Eastern men), and even for the guards at Fetullah Gulen’s Poconos estate….all paid for by you and me. Gulen himself has nurtured allies such as the infamous greed merchant Sheldon Andelson to protect his investments and his reach into world politics.
Another set up in Conn. to assure that the majority of students are labeled failures, mimics the original NYC testing. How long will it take the American public to wake up to all this manipulation?
The Koch brothers with their joint $83 Billion dollar fortune, richer than Gates, are busy quietly setting up schools nationwide, and also higher ed, to train all their students in the free market worldview, and then sending them out into the world as teachers, LEGISLATORS,
What will our nation look like a decade from now?
Standardized tests, especially of the high-stakes variety, are no casual affairs. They are tailored to the requirements of the clients. The outcomes are predetermined, to an astonishing degree of accuracy.
I’ve written it before, and IMHO it bears repeating, that anyone surprised by, let’s say, the 70% fail rate in NY was—
Sucker punched.
Can there be any doubt why I call the self-styled “education reformers” edubullies?
😎
>>>>To reveal the reform fraud behind this artificial and manufactured K-12 failure rate is easy when we look at Connecticut’s college graduation rate compared to the rest of the country.
The U.S. average 4-year college graduation rate is 31.3% compared to 40.6% in Connecticut.
When we break the 4-year college graduation completion rate comparison down by race, Connecticut beats the national average every time.
White—US average is 34.2% but Connecticut is 42.1%
Black—US 16.4% but Connecticut is 23.6%
Asian—US is 38% but Connecticut is 48.9%
Hispanic—US is 21.5% but Connecticut is 30.6%
American Indian—-US is 17.2% but Connecticut is 31.6%
>>>>How does Connecticut rank compared to other states for 4-year public college gradation rates.
#12 out of 50 with a 40.6% graduation rat in four years that’s boosted to 61.5% in six years for students who take longer to graduate. Now, before a fake reformer jumps on that #12 ranking and manipulates the propaganda to make it look bad, what does that mean. Will it means that Connecticut does better preparing children to be ready for and complete Colette than 76% of the states.
Last place is District of Columbia with a 2.4% 4-year graduation rate.
California, by the way, is ranked 7th in this comparison.
Michigan and Florida—-other reformer controlled states busy failing all their public schools using cherry picked manipulated date, propaganda and lies—are ranked 14th and 13th respectively.
http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=ct§or=public_four
>>>>In addition, before the fake reformers attempt to spin propaganda to make these college graduation rates look bad, let’s compare the United States to the world for college completion rates. It isn’t hard to find the propaganda that takes the actual US ranking for college graduation rates and make it look bad—the fake reformers pay experts to lie for them.
According to the Paris-based OECD’s “Education at a Glance 2014,” an annual report that came out last week and compares education data for the 34 OECD member nations as well as some additional countries, the United States has the fifth-largest proportion of adults, ages 25 to 64, with a college degree: 43 percent.
According to a September 2012 report from 24/7 Wall Street’s “The Most Educated Countries in the World”, the U.S. is ranked #4 with 42% of the population having earned a 4-year or better college education and graduated.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2012/09/21/the-most-educated-countries-in-the-world/3/
Between 2012 and 2014, the United States increased its college graduation rate by 1% of an adult population age 24 and above. The three countries that were ranked #1, #2 and #3 were Canada #38 with a total population of 34.8 million, Israel (#99 or 7.8 million) and Japan #11 or 127 million).
>>>>Remember, these rankings are based on a percentage ratio of population age 24+.
But who had the most college graduates in the world—not the percentage based on total adult population age 24+?
1st: The U.S. age group 24 and above = 213.2 million resulting in 91.7 million college graduates
2nd: Japan = 97.8 million resulting in 44 million college graduates
3rd: Canada = 24.9 million resulting in 12.6 million college graduates
4th: Israel = 4.5 million resulting in 2.07 million college graduates
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html
>>>>Last, poverty rate and actual number of people living in poverty comparing the four countries with the highest ratio/ranking of college graduates.
1st: US = 15.1% of 318 million people = 48 million live in poverty
2nd: Japan = 16% of 127 million = 20.3 million
3rd: Canada = 9.4% of 34.8 million = 3.27 million
4th: Israel = 23.5% of 7.8 million = 1.8 million
Now, when we look at all the numbers and not just what the fake corporate Bill Gates supported reformers cherry-pick and manipulate for their propaganda, what do we learn?
Thanks for bringing this forward. A problem with all of these stats is that they perpetuate the numbers game. But sometimes we really do need numbers to keep things in perspective… like the poverty stats and the other big gap in the US, between the 1% and 99%.
Thanks Lloyd…great info. Merry/Happy.
Fascinating research, Lloyd, thanks for sharing.
One question. Are you sure that “tertiary education refers to a 4 year college degree? I tried to find their definition in the link you provided, but was not able to do so. So I did a wiki search and found this: It appears to deal with education beyond what we call high school. So it could be 1 year certifications, 2 year AA degrees as well as 4 year degrees. Still impressive – but I am wondering if you found a different definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education
Overall, thanks for sharing these stats.
The numbers for US 4-year college graduation rates should be accurate. I’m not sure about other countries—it’s possible that those numbers of 4-year college degrees are actually less.
The reason is because many countries offer two tracks: academic and vocational but often use the same general term for a degree.
Connecticut’s stats are no doubt pulled upward because it is one of the wealthiest states in the nation.
Interesting stats on the state here:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/09000.html
In addition, Connecticut’s poverty rate is ranked #10 for lowest rate at 9.7% for poverty by household income. In comparison, the District of Columbia is ranked worst at #51 with a 20.7% poverty rate by household income.
Mississippi is #2 at 20.1%
I think the reason the fake reformers are working so hard to make Connecticut’s successful public schools look like failures is because their Hedge Fund, Walton Family, Koch brothers, Bill Gates owned politicians dominate the state.
Enough voters were fooled from the massive flood of propaganda to vote for them, now the voters are going to lose it all.
The puppet politicians think like this: Once we take over a state politically, no matter how successful the school’s are, our masters will fund the propaganda machine to crank out lies 24/7 until the people believe us and we can get rid of those great public schools and replace them with corporate Charters so our masters will profit and control all thought and life.
And a principal, hired by a company (Family for Urban Excellence/FUSE) handpicked by Pryor has just been arrested for stealing over $10,000 from a Bridgeport charter school and spending it at casinos.
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-principal-charged-with-larceny-5975948.php
More from Jon Pelto here ~
http://jonathanpelto.com/2014/12/23/bridgeport-principal-brought-jumokes-dr-michael-sharpe-arrested-first-degree-larceny/
Tragic but Connecticut is not the only state which indulges in such myopic thinking.
Who will speak for the high school student on track for a diploma,doing the best he or she can do, but is now declared a failure. No diploma, no job. The GED seems to now be about the same as the HS tests, not a real alternative. They will be the majority. But then, to be cynical, there are the private prisons with high paid-for occupancy rates. Lot of kids hanging out, nothing to do..
The gangs will become a viable option and the black market will become dominant.
Barbara and Old Teacher…agree with you both. I work with the issues of middle school and high school students who are ADD/ADHD, have learning disabilities and are hard to teach. Almost every study shows that these young people, who often act out in class and then are suspended, wander the street thereafter with no supervision and end up most often in Juvenile Justice court. The more enlightened communites in my area of study, Southern and Central California, have joined with public services to develop Teen Courts and restorative justice to give these kids a chance to succeed without pushing them into the prison system.
However, there are too many judges who are personally reactionary in their belief systems, political and religious, who delight in sending kids into the free market of private prisons. After all, this new, and frightening entrepreneurship profit making opportunity requires every cot in every cell be filled for the benefit of the investors. Literally, shop lifting a pack of gum can mean a year’s sentence.
The whole system is askew.
But the Common Core isn’t ABOUT the tests! 🙂
Raise your hand if you knew the Common Core would become 100% about the Common Core tests. It was inevitable.
They can’t claim these Big Ideas aren’t all about the tests and then base every single decision and policy on test scores.
That doesn’t make any sense. It won’t work. Ever.
I’m aghast!
Chiara: credit where credit is due.
A tip of the holiday hat to Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a charter member of the education establishment, who at this time last year gave us his version of “letting the cat out of the bag”:
[start quote]
And that brings us back to the Common Core. If the standards are better than those that many states had in place, swell. If more common reading and math standards make things easier for material developers and kids who move across states, that’s fine. But I don’t think that stuff amounts to all that much.
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
For the link to his piece and critical context, go to—
Link: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
And as deutsch29 pointed out in the same blog posting linked above, referencing another insider of the self-styled “education reform” status quo:
[start quote]
There’s a studied dishonesty about the “state-led” rhetoric. Going back to Common Core’s initial planning in 2007 and 2008, its earliest advocates always noted that getting most states to adopt common standards and implement them aggressively would probably require an outsized federal role.
As Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas Fordham Institute and a longtime champion of national standards, observed in 2010, “For these standards to get traction . . . a whole bunch of other things need to happen. Curriculum needs to happen, textbooks need to be aligned with the curriculum, teacher preparation and professional development need to be aligned, tests need to be aligned, [and] the accountability system that is built on those tests needs to make sense.”
[end quote]
Sometimes we have to set aside for a moment even the wisdom of those very old and very dead and very Greek guys:
“Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.” [Homer]
Put together what Hess and Finn said and you’ve got pure gold.
¿? Ok, fool’s gold, but pure gold nonetheless. And that sort of rheephorm currency goes a long way in undermining their whole enterprise…
😎
Pryor has repeatedly demonstrated a single strategy for improving school’s, demonstrating a lack of performance so that he can infuse charter schools. Largely, this has been unsuccessful and many charters in CT have been riddled by fraud and deception. Commissioner Pryor has hurt public education in CT and I for one am happy to see him go!
Hmmmm…sounds like New York State. I was on the committee (group?) that set the initial cut scores and we all knew that most students couldn’t meet them. But then, they kept telling us that “this is every single third graded in NYS,” and I would say, “You mean a third grader in Westchester County, the South Bronx, and Minerva are all supposed to answer this the same way? Excuse me, have you ever met an actual third-grader?”