Carol Burris analyzed the New York State results in the third year of Pearson testing for the Common Core, and she was underwhelmed.
She says the results are “a flop. The proficiency needle barely budged.” Achievement gaps grew.
“The percentage of students scoring proficient in English Language Arts rose less than 1 point, to 31.3 percent. The percentage of students who met math proficiency rose less than 2 points, to 38.1 percent. At this rate of increase, it will take about 70 years for all New York students to meet both New York Common Core proficiency cut scores.
There was no closing of the gap—in fact when it comes to proficiency rates, the gap between white students and black students and white students and Latino students widened in both ELA and math. The math proficiency gap increased by more than 3 percentage points. Both black and Latino student math proficiency rates rose about 1 percent–gains by white students were largely responsible for most of the increase in state math scores.
“Only 4.4 percent of all English language learners and 5.7 percent of students with disabilities were proficient in English Language Arts, and their math proficiency gains were respectively 0.6 percent and 1 percent….
“Three years of data make it crystal clear that the New York State Education Department is giving inappropriate tests, which are, for most students, a prolonged and arduous exercise in multiple guess.
“No one should be more embarrassed by that sad state of affairs than Chancellor Merryl Tisch. Answer Sheet readers may remember her big promise after the first year of Common Core tests. Comparing herself to Babe Ruth, Tisch said, “He called that shot, and he said, ‘I’m going to hit it there…A year from now, God willing, if we’re all sitting here, I promise you test scores are going to go up.”
“That promise was made after the first year of testing. In Year 2, there were flat ELA scores and a tiny tick up in math. Year 3 is once again a bust.”
Burris writes:
“The second clue came July 20 when Tisch said, ““Personally, I would say that if I was the mother of a student with a certain type of disability, I would think twice before I allowed my child to sit through an exam that was incomprehensible to them,”
“The “incomprehensible” test to which she refers is her own State Education Department’s Grade 3-8 Common Core tests. She does not explain what exactly that “certain type of disability” is. Apparently nearly 70 percent of all New York students have it.”
Chancellor Tisch believes in the theory that raising the bar higher and higher causes children to try harder. But if they fail year after year to meet goals beyond their reach, will they keep trying?
A few years ago, before the first of the Common Core tests, Tisch said it was time to throw kids into the deep end of the pool. Now we know–or should–that this is not a good way to teach swimming.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am fairly sure throwing non-swimming children into a pool would be considered a form of assault if the child didn’t drown and murder if they did.
No pain no gain is not a universal truth and applies only to physical exercise.
Life and learning need not be exercises in pain management and should not hurt our children even by the exercise.
I’m sure David Coleman would disagree with you, M.
I can almost hear him saying: “No one gives a s#%t if you can’t swim! Keep throwing that child in the water until they save themselves. You can’t give them advance knowledge of swimming techniques or discuss what others have said about swimming. They must figure it out on their own because that’s higher order thinking and we must have RIGOR! Sure, some will drown but were they really potential moneymakers in the first place? I think not.”
That’s his philosophy regarding special needs students so I’m sure it applies to all the working class children who don’t attend elite private schools.
Our brave, new, neoliberal world where New Criticism and billionaire money drive everything we do and the citizens are simply profit points to be bought and sold at will.
I can’t wait till Zephyr Teachout is governor of New York with Carol Burris as her state ed commissioner.
Bernie Sanders 2016
Zephyr Teachout 2018
The low passing rates are a feature, and not a bug, of this entire process: after all, one of the primary purposes of Common Core and it’s attendant exams is to “objectively” demonstrate the “failure” of the public schools and their teachers.
Yes, as I’ve been saying to my colleagues since SpringBoard came in, “If scores go up, it’ll be because of SpringBoard; if they go down, it’ll be because of us.”
Since the cutoff scores are decided after the raw results are collected the “pass rate” can be set at any percentage. This is not an academic decision but a political one. The whole business is a seriously misguided fix (or farce). I am still mind boggled by the grading of history teachers using the kids’ scores on math and ELA. Also, I consider a test whose questions are kept secret forever is invalid on that count alone. At least NY publishes the questions.
NY publishes a percentage of the questions.
There are too many subjective manipulations in the process to consider it valid or trustworthy. Students should not be subject to the “slings and arrows” of outrageous politicians.
Well, NY publishes SOME of the questions. I look to the day when they publish the entire exams. Of course, that will be a long wait.
Oh, thinking your program can do something new that has never been done and believing it has succeeded before it has started..
Is that higher order thinking or just delusional?
I find the Babe Ruth analogy very interesting. The thing about athletes (and various other professions), is that they’re pushing themselves to achieve a goal. Their success in achieving that goal depends much on their own skill and will. To say “I” am going to achieve a goal that depends on the skill and will of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS is a dangerous gamble. If one is too deeply invested in the skill & will of others, there’s a danger of imposing one’s will onto them. This is where the process of dehumanization begins… trying to impose one’s will on another. Anyone who’s done good, deep psychological work involving codependency will recognize the difference between doing what’s TRULY good for self and others versus trying to control others in an effort to protect oneself from seeing the truth.
Where complete compliance undermines authority. When the “best” way to show a
“fool” is wrong, is to do “it” his/her way. ENDORSE the validity of the tests. See the
“light” and admit the tests reveal far MORE “special needs” students exists, in need
of far MORE funding. A “put your money where your mouth is” act. Watch their
mouth change. Beat them at their own “game”.
The “compliance” gambit reduces their imagined “need” to control. Once off their
“radar”, you have more freedom to do your own thing. Play them. The head band
of their “boss hat” will constrict their thought process, as their “large and in charge”
heads swell, courtesy of your pretend compliance.
I wish it were that simple. However, IDEA (Individuals With Disability Act) has NEVER been fully funded, since its inception 33 years ago. They’ve never come even close to funding the 40% cost they described in the original bill. 2014 saw 16% of the cost covered by the federal government who wrote the underfunded mandate and then left it up to states to pay for their requirements.
I doubt any amount of parent pressure will change that. In many ALEC states there is a move away from having standalone Special Education classes at all and they are requiring teachers to increase their certification to teach ESE students here in FL so as to eliminate much of the current costs of education these children.
Shame has no effect and since Citizens United became the law of the land politicians are less fearful of losing their seats. If they do the bidding of ALEC they are guaranteed millions to buy their seat back whether the majority of voters choose them or not. It works more often than not.
From Atlas.newamerica.org:
“IDEA is not “fully funded.” In the IDEA legislation, Congress set a maximum target for the federal contribution to special education spending equal to 40 percent of the estimated excess cost of educating children with disabilities. Thus, if the program were “fully funded,” the states would receive their maximum grants, calculated at 40 percent of the national average per pupil expenditure (APPE) times the number of children with disabilities served in the school year 2004-2005, adjusted for population changes.4 Under the act, the count of children with disabilities cannot exceed 12 percent of the state’s total school population.
For FY 2014, IDEA federal funding covered 16 percent of the estimated excess cost of educating children with disabilities, less than in FY 2008 when federal funding covered 17 percent of the cost and well below FY 2009 when additional funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act covered 33 percent of the cost. IDEA Part B “full funding” for FY 2014 would have amounted to approximately $28.65 billion, or roughly $17.17 billion more than was actually appropriated. The shortfall in IDEA funding has been assumed by the states and local school districts.”
I can’t speak to why Rockville Centre didn’t manage to close its black/Latino test score gaps, but the reasons are clearer in New York City: the UFT, Chancellor Fariña, and Mayor de Blasio decided to do away with 37.5 minutes’ worth of high-quality, low-class-size (no more than 5:1 for SWDs/ELLs; 10:1 for gen ed) extended-day tutoring that had been available four days a week, 144 days a year, for kids who needed it most. This was replaced by a Monday professional development session (a sham at many schools) and a Tuesday parent engagement period (for all those parents who have Tuesday afternoons off), without any evidence whatsoever that doing so would improve student outcomes.
It also needs to be noted that the progressive schools and districts that believe in authentic assessments and eliminating test-based accountability (and let’s be honest about it: the forces leading the opt-out movement don’t want to improve the tests that are administered by a third party or reduce their length/frequency, they want to eradicate them permanently and entirely) haven’t done any better at closing the achievement gap. PS 321 had an astounding 50-point gap in white and black ELA proficiency rates this year, for example.
An adult conversation needs to take place about what cut scores mean, and what are our goals and expectations are for K-12 public education. With per-student funding at the median NYS district set at about $23,000 for the upcoming school year, we’re well beyond a point where we shouldn’t take a hard look at student outcomes, and where we should rely on the schools alone to tell us how good they’re doing—authentic assessments” and evaluations are just as susceptible to bias, corruption, and distortion as anything else.
Why am I not surprised?
Because it’s a bunch of MMoOO*ing by all the GAGA**ers, by those who refuse to understand the COMPLETE INVALIDITY of the whole process of EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS AND STANDARDIZED TESTING, unfortunately, by the vast majority of those involved with public education and the teaching and learning process. Start with invalidity and one is guaranteed to end with invalidities.
*Mental Masturbation or Obligatory Onanism
**Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution*** upon their passing from this realm.
***Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
“The percentage of students scoring proficient in English Language Arts rose less than 1 point, to 31.3 percent. The percentage of students who met math proficiency rose less than 2 points, to 38.1 percent.”
Hey, but that’s okay, because the College Board made a lot of money with SpringBoard.