New York State has bumbled into bizarre-O land. Chalkbeat reports that Néw York’s Common Core tests are more difficult than NAEP.
The NAEP tests are supposed to be internationally benchmarked. NAEP proficient is a very high standard that most students have never met (except in Massachusetts, where barely 50% reach proficient).
“In eighth-grade math, 22 percent of students earned what New York state called a passing score last school year, while 32 percent were deemed proficient on the NAEP exams. In fourth-grade reading, 33 percent passed the state test, while 37 percent of students earned a proficient score on the NAEP test. (Massachusetts was the other outlier, with more students earning a proficient score on the eighth-grade math NAEP test than on the state’s own tests.)”
State officials are pleased that their standards are beyond the reach of most students. For some strange reason, high failure rates are a source of pride. Bizarre.
The more they design tests to fail most students, the more the Opt Out movement will grow. When did education fall into the hands of technocratic sadists? They think education is a test of endurance, where only the stirring survive. Parents see education as a process of development, not a cruel race.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No question about it. The opt-out movement must go forward. Texas is probably the worst on the testing madness with the STAAR test.
And now let’s speak of the standardized test for ELL learners. Two days ago, our fine, dedicated, passionate, knowledgable ELL teacher came out of the testing room sobbing (the children were gone).The NY State tests for ELL learners was so difficult, even a native speaker first grader would have had trouble answering the questions. As per usual, the vocabulary had completely changed—after years of using “text” to refer to the content they must read, first graders were given the tricky word “passage.” OK, yes, a native speaker might have gotten this, but not our ELL learners. The “passage” children had to read, was either a long paragraph, or two (I don’t remember), but well above first grade reading level. The children just sat there, stunned, and then of course, because they love their teacher tried their best. This test was not designed to assess what they learned, but designed to humiliate them. Each one of them has come so far—as their librarian I listen to them talk about their books, title, fiction, nonfiction, their favorite part, their favorite fact, what they still wonder, the setting. At the beginning of the year, they could do little of this. Together, their ELL teacher and I have gotten them to speak out loud, share their learning. And then this? How do we rebuild their trust in our teaching, their learning? How do we give them hope and rebuild their confidence? How long will we mortgage their future and ours to these testing companies?
The NYSESLAT IS impossible. My ELLS have given up. I’ve been teaching for 13 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.I spoke with someone at Office of Student Assessments about the NYSESLAT this week. We discussed the length, topics and complexity of texts, time required for first graders to finish (an hour and 15 min on average) and the sticky subject of teacher evaluation based on it. She assured me that state ed would “make sure we get the same number of students who pass and who fail” as last year. My response: “Oh, so you’ll manipulate the data to get the results you need. So why put the kids through this at all?!”
Please email the office of student assessments bc they assured me that want to hear from us. Maybe it was lip service, but we have to make our collective voices heard. This test is NOT for ELLs.
It might be time to throw some tests into the harbor. That would make for great political theater.
The Achieve report praises KY for the same sort of result, and our Commisioner of Education Terry Holliday cited the rigor of Senate Bill 9 (the implementation of CCSS and other college and career readiness initiatives) for the “success” of the lower state test scores, explaining that KY parents now have reliable evidence of whether their children are college ready.
Alison,
Orwellian: when failure (of students)=success (of reformers’ true goal, which is to generate low scores and frighten parents into seeking alternatives to public schools)
Whenever a positive report shows up some one here immediately denies it using strange logic (Orwellian etc.) If one thinks about the worst things in life every moment, every day, it will turn out to be that way.
Please explain to the rest of us what is wrong with the positive report with citations that can believed?
Raj, I see nothing positive in a report that NY has made its tests harder to pass than the very rigorous NAEP tests. In the last two administrations of the NY state tests, 70% of students did not meet the arbitrary cut scores. Why would you be happy to learn that the passing mark was set so high that most students will never pass. Will they drop out of school? Will they never graduate? What part of this report is positive? I see it as a story of state officials choosing a passing mark that guarantees mass failure. They are free to set the passing mark wherever they wish. What were they thinking?
Here is the similar report from KY: http://education.ky.gov/comm/news/Documents/R15-051%20test%20score%20reliability.pdf
“Bumbling?”
Hardly: while there have been missteps in rolling out the tests, their creation and the setting of their cut scores are highly political acts, purposefully intended to fail large numbers of students, and thus “prove” that the public schools and their unionized teachers are failing.
Do we need any more proof about how despicable the so-called reformers are, that they would use children to get at the institutions (public schools and the unions that represent their teachers) that are the true target?
Yes, “it’s all about the kids,” except it’s all about using them to feed the insatiable greed and will-to-power of the so-called reformers.
Absolutely true, every word of it!
And that is exactly why the opt out movement is growing. Parents aren’t fooled.
Using Common Core tests to wage war on teachers and public schools, while enlisting children as cannon fodder. Despicable.
One important disclaimer regarding 8th grade math scores. The vast majority of accelerated math students in NYS did not take the grade 8 CC math test. Instead they got to take the grade 9 Common Core algebra I test last June. NYSED has decided to set the HS math and ELA cut scores at a 75% pass rate to avoid the political riot that a 30% graduation rate would create. So they decide to stigmatize our youngest and most vulnerable children instead.
Low test scores are just setting up the Music Man to sing “Trouble in River City” so that all children will choose to go to for-profit charter schools.
“We’ve got trouble! Right here in River City! With a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for public (schools)!”
Lakoff’s …survival of the fittest, not survival of the best nurtured. The incompetence of the test developers is matched by the ignorance about education of those who ushered the CCSS and tests into existence. Their view of children? Blank slates, empty vessels. Their view of k-12 education?…no different from corporate and military training for adults. These tests need to be made public. The test makers are more concerned with protecting their intellectual property under the banner of ensuring test ” integrity” than offering assurances the tests are fair, valid, and of value as part of the educational process. The substitution of the word “passage” for “text” is bizarre.
GRADE 3 – ELA COMMON CORE STANDARDS:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1.a
Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.a
Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.b
Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., describe people who are friendly or helpful).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.c
Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.a
Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.b
Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.c
Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).
I BLAME VAGUE, ABSTRACT COMMON CORE STANDARDS (EMPTY SKILL SETS) THAT CANNOT BE TESTED EFFICIENTLY OR ACCURATELY USING AN MC FORMAT. PEARSON TEST DEVELOPERS ARE ONLY PARTIALLY TO BLAME.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I could just about manage this stuff.
Most university students can’t do a lot of this.
Puts the lie to claims that CCSS-ELA is ‘rigorous’ or ‘just needs a little tweaking’– Yes, ’empty skill sets that cannot be tested.. using a [multiple-choice] format’ – nor any other format I’ll wager.
For 3rd-graders? As a parent of 3 w/for-lang/lit background just gotta give feedback. See if you agree– or am I just being negative and ornery?
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1.a Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences…
Absolutely useless exercise at any level. Perhaps– in 5thgr not in 3rd– demonstrate this knowledge by “diagramming sentences”– just perhaps. (helpful later for complex prose e.g. Henry James)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.a
Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps)…
Too soon, many 3rd-graders just beginnning the transit to abstract thinking. Try it in 5th grade.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.b
Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., describe people who are friendly or helpful)…
Huh? Sounds like a vocabulary test disguised with buzz-words.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5.c Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered)…
A good standard for 5th grade.
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies…
Padding – more jargon hiding vocabulary tests.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.a Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase…
This is an integral part of teaching & learning reading – not a candidate for extraction as a MC-testable skill.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.b Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat)…
I hope this does not mean 8-y.o.’s are discussing & memorizing lists of prefixes and suffixes. That’s the sort of thing which can be rapidly acquired in 6th grade but is close to pointless in 3rd.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4.c Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion)…
See above: (a)integral part of reading process not candidate for extraction as a MC-testable skill AT THIS AGE. (b)rapidly acquired & testable in 6th gr, waste of time in 3rd.
Thank you Sp and Fr Freelancer. That was a wonderful breakdown of the CC “standards”. On first reading they sound impressive but when you try to decider the meaning it’s all gobble-d-gook. You definitely put it into perspective. It also explains why the assessments are written for fifth or six graders instead of 8 to 9 year olds.
Those in the “know” have yet again demonstrated they “know not”. If only they had consulted the ones in the trenches – the teachers – we wouldn’t be in such a big mess.
Ellen #HowDoWeFixThisMess
The cut scores for PARCC and SBAC are supposed to be comparable. Based on field tests, SBAC set a cut score that includes about 11% of students at the ” proficient” level. By that standard, NY students are super smart
or the NY tests are too easy.
Such is the screwy logic of those addicted to tests as if these are objective and the only trustworthy measure of student learning and ” effective ” teaching.
More failing scores = hedge funding for private education owned and invested in by top corps. and Albany.
My third grader is still reeling from the experience of these tests. I feel like the rest of the school year has been sabotaged. My heart aches.
More difficult because of the grade-inappropriate content? More difficult because of the artificially set cut score? More difficult because of the bizarre scoring method? Or yes to all of these and more??? What the heck is the rational purpose????? (she asked rhetorically)
dianeravitch [9:17 AM, 5-15-15]: or in other words…
The entire “education reform” project is built on the “soft bigotry of low expectations”—they assume the vast majority will fail. And how do they ensure that rheeality meets their expectations? They practice the “hard bigotry of mandated failure” so that toxic prejudice and educational malpractice are mutually reinforcing.
In practical terms this means that to “prove” they are right about the lack of merit of the vast majority of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN (and their parents and communities and the public schools that serve them) they rig the standardized testing so that the results match their preconceived and hateful notions of the superiority of themselves and THEIR OWN CHILDREN. *Yes, the testing companies are ‘good’ enough to make the tests match clients’ requirements—and if massive failure is required, they can deliver the goods (or should we call it “bads”?).
Which is exactly why, faced with the high-stakes standardized testing juggernaut called CCSS, the rheephormsters shamelessly and cynically excuse themselves and their own from what they know is a form of institutionalized child abuse.
This blog, 5-23-2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”—
[start]
This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.
[end]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
It’s on a par with the rheephormistas in Los Angeles claiming that public school advocates—not their own bad selves!—were all in for the iPad and MISIS catastrophes.
Again, to make myself clear: the trendsetters and heavyweights in the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement are FAILURE writ large. And they don’t won’t and can’t learn from their own mistakes—because they don’t pay the price, we do.
Time to opt out of standardized testing. Time to opt in to genuine learning and teaching.
😎
“State officials are pleased that their standards are beyond the reach of most students. For some strange reason, high failure rates are a source of pride. Bizarre.”
Diane, I’m sure you recall that you were one of the leading voices advocating for higher failure rates on New York’s state assessments. If your voice had any influence (you know better than I whether or not it did), then you are one of the reasons why the goal of higher failure rates was achieved.
FLERP, you are mistaken. I never called for higher failure rates. I have never advised the Néw York State Education Department or the Board of Regents, nor have they asked my views. If they did, I would strongly oppose their current course of action. I have over 10,000 posts on this blog and two recent best-sellers making this clear. Or are you scouring for op-eds that I wrote 10 years ago and assuming that they magically became the basis of state policy in 2015?
So when you say you “never called for higher failure rates,” what you mean is you have not called for higher failure rates in any post on this blog or in your last two books? I’m sure that’s true. I’m thinking further back, when you and others were writing op/ed columns about how states were lowering cut scores on their tests to create the illusion that more students were meeting state proficiency standards, and urging policymakers to align raise the cut scores to align with NAEP’s. Do you seriously not remember this? Or is everything that happened before 2010 meaningless?
FLERP, I wrote a book in 2010 explaining why I changed my views about testing, accountability, and choice. Read it.
FLERP!: you are doing yourself and your POV a disservice.
“When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
I respectfully suggest that you take Will Rogers’ advice and apologize to the owner of this blog.
😎
Sleazy move, Flerp; people are allowed to change their views, and for public figures, that’s an act of courage.
Your snark has it’s place; this was a Fail.
FLERP,
You have crossed the line. Enough is enough.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another nail in the coffin of NYS testing.
What an over reaction – the assessments were said to be too easy so they made them so difficult that less than a third could pass (and some of that was by good guessing).
Ellen #RecognizesStupidity
They come from a place where they are “winners” who have more money and power than the rest of us, individually speaking. They hold this up as what we all should be striving for, with the confused bias that they are “winners” because they are harder-working and superior. They assume that others want to be like them, and if they aren’t, it’s because they are inferior. They negate whatever privilege and luck they’ve had, choosing to see themselves as superior beings who are more deserving than others. In their world of winners and losers, all is as it should be: they are on top because they are better, and others should have the “opportunity” to show off their superiority – or lose.
Ahhh! The arrogance of privilege! They forget the cry of “Let Them Eat Cake” and the resulting revolution. When the haves flaunt their power, the have nots start to grumble. Then the grumble becomes a roar which can easily lead to a revolution. Those suburban moms are arming themselves – so those bureaucrats looking down their noses at the masses better beware.
Ellen #ProudPlebe
I never, never, never, never, never shop at Walmart! Never.
Why not get a legislator to propose testing for any school receiving any public money for anything?