Jonathan Pelto reports a very important story from Washington State. As we have learned to expect, a majority of the students in the state “failed” the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Why?because the testing groups set the “cut score” (passing mark) unrealistically high.

Remarkably, the state board of education lowered the cut score so that most students would be able to graduate.

Pelto writes:

“Yup, you read that correctly, after taxpayers were forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the Common Core and the Common Core Tests and students and teachers wasted unfathomable amounts of time prepping and taking the tests that were designed to label the vast majority of students as failures, the “lead” state behind the SBAC testing scheme simply threw out results.

“Instead of going with the cut score that was adopted by the SBAC coordinating committee last November, an unfair rating system that was adopted with the support of [Connecticut] Governor Dannel Malloy’s representatives, the Washington State Board of Education choose a new “passing” level , “where about as many kids are expected to pass the exams as passed the state’s previous tests.”

Now, Pelto wonders, what will Connecticut do?

His answer:

“Okay everyone – now would be a good time for Connecticut’s students, parents and teachers to start screaming out of utter frustration and anger!

“And then let’s go get the pitchforks!”

The reality is that no one knows how the cut scores were set, whether they actually predict college and career readiness, or why they were set so high that most students fail in every state.