An article in The Hechinger Report puzzles over the mysterious decline of graduation rates in New York, after five years of Common Core.
A student in a high school just outside of New York City. Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Back in 2013, when New York was one of the first states in the nation to adopt Common Core standards and administer tougher tests, children’s test scores initially plummeted. Then, as teachers had time to develop lesson plans and adjust to new curricula, student performance began to improve. A similar pattern seemed to be emerging among the state’s high school students, who are required to pass a series of exams, called Regents, to earn a diploma. After an initial drop in pass rates among eighth and ninth graders on a Common Core algebra exam in 2014-15, scores improved.
But now, after five years of high schools teaching to the Common Core standards (now slightly revamped and called Next Generation Learning Standards in New York), there’s a sudden spike in the high-school failure rate. More than 13,000 more students failed the algebra Regents exam in the most recent 2017-18 school year compared to the previous year, pushing the failure rate up from 25 percent to 30 percent, according to a December 2018 report by education policy consultant David Rubel. In the English Language Arts or reading exam, the number of failing students grew by more than 12,000 students, increasing the failure rate from 16 percent to 21 percent.
“It’s odd that there would be a decline at this point,” said Morgan Polikoff, a professor at the University of Southern California’s school of education and an expert in assessments. “Most often the trend is that a new exam is implemented, there’s a ‘dip’ in performance. I don’t like calling it a dip because it’s a different test so it’s not really comparable. And then scores gradually increase over time.”
A puzzle indeed. It can’t possibly be anything wrong with Common Core or the Tests. It must be the kids. Too many ELLs.
Or there’s always this hope:
Low-achieving children who are exposed to Common Core instruction from the start in kindergarten may test better in high school in the years to come. Perhaps this problem will be a transitional one that will work itself through the system in the next five years.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“More than 13,000 more students failed the algebra Regents exam in the most recent 2017-18 school year compared to the previous year, pushing the failure rate up from 25 percent to 30 percent, according to a December 2018 report by education policy consultant David Rubel. In the English Language Arts or reading exam, the number of failing students grew by more than 12,000 students, increasing the failure rate from 16 percent to 21 percent.”
Ugh. That’s not good. I didn’t oppose the Common Core as a parent because to my untrained eye the math looked exactly like “Singapore math” which our school was using anyway, and my son did fine with it, but that’s a big drop.
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“Low-achieving children who are exposed to Common Core instruction from the start in kindergarten may test better in high school in the years to come. Perhaps this problem will be a transitional one that will work itself through the system in the next five years.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha!
YEP, and I”ve got some beautiful white sand ocean front beach property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri to sell ya quite cheaply.
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bingo
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That is some long experiment on our children
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New York does not need to produce a generation of guinea pigs to please Gates’ standardization agenda. New York already has the Regents exam in place for various subjects. Perhaps the Board of Regents should consider unhitching New York’s wagon to Gates gravy train and do what makes sense for New York students instead.
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Forgive my bucolic ignorance. Why are serious academics placing serious consideration on test scores? Why does anyone with a brain accept data because it is data?
Morgan Polikoff needs to leave the college long enough to go ask teachers what testing does. He or she is not alone. The relationship between what students learn and test scores is nil.
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Succinctly stated: “Why does anyone with a brain accept data because it is data?”
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Common Core is not a curriculum, not a program. You cannot teach Common Core. It is a set of criteria. Actual curriculum may be produces by Holt, Pearson, EngageNY (who also belong to Pearson, AFAIK), McGraw-Hill, etc. Common Core was the fog used by these and other publishers to dust off their 20-year old failed “constructivist” programs designed along the lines of 1989 NCTM specs. Look at Core-Plus Math: first edition came out in 1995. California abandoned NCTM specs and decided against Core-Plus, and designed its own standards in 1997. Now, with Common Core having replaced the 1997 standards, Core-Plus is back, with a new cover sporting “Common Core”, but with pretty much the same failed content within. Hence, it is disingenuous to blame Common Core in all sins. These guys were to each other benefit: Common Core “writers” took a lot of existing NCTM stuff, while NCTM-borne math programs crawled back under pretext that they are now Common Core editions.
Dig deeper.
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“Common Core was the fog used by these and other publishers to dust off their 20-year old failed “constructivist” programs”
Precisely.
And this same failed methodology (constructivist/discovery learning) is now invading the 18(?) states, New York and California included, that adopted the Next Generation Science Standards. Just another reform designed to discredit current standards in order to sell the “fix”.
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The Regents exams have been around since the 19th century, and, for the last seven years Common Core standards have been embedded in the tests, not dramatically different exams, the exams are also “scaled,” you need fewer “correct” answers than the previous exams …. a rich area for researchers, … Massachusetts has high standards and high passing rates …. it is odd …. it was anticipated that after few years students would improve and the “scaling” would not be necessary …. not the case …. are the exams aligned with curriculum? with instruction?
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NYS manipulates the number of students who pass the exams. Unlike teachers who design tests in which getting 70% of the available points means that a student has an adequate understanding of the material, the regents math exams contain questions ranging from the bizarre to the unimportant and trivial with a few reasonable questions thrown in. The grading scale is seems to be set so that a predetermined percentage of students receive scores at each level. If you are interested, just google NYS regents exams and take a look at the algebra 1 test questions, the answer key, and the scoring scale for past regents.
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Algebra I scaling has typically required a score of +27 raw points out of 86 available raw points. So a student who earns 31% of the 86 available points, receives a scaled score of 65 which is the minimum passing grade. Keep in mind that all 9th graders, including IEP and ELL students must pass Algebra I in order to graduate. Achieving a score in the mid to high 90s is still very challenging fo most nhigh school freshman. It is also common for accelerated 8th grade math students to take the Algebra I Regents test in lieu of the NYS common core math test from Questar.
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In addition, students who fail are permitted to re-take Regents exams multiple times, using slight variations administered in either June, August, or January. Not sure if this data included re-takes.
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Well, they could go the route of California and scrap all requirements to graduate except passing classes with D grades.
Of course, this will lead to thousands upon thousands of students being given credit for meaningless “recovery classes,” despite knowing next to nothing.
“…may test better…”
I’m barely able to restrain myself from writing a string of profanity.
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“Well, they could go the route of California and scrap all requirements to graduate except passing classes with D grades.”
Please expound on why that would be such a terrible thing considering grades suffer all the onto-epistemological falsehoods and errors as shown by Wilson.
Isn’t passing all the required classes as a prereq for graduation what we had for the last 100 years?
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“Low-achieving children who are exposed to Common Core instruction from the start in kindergarten may test better in high school in the years to come.”
A 13-year experiment on children. An entire generation taught CC to see what outcome it “may” have. Ghastly.
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That’s treating children as lab rats.
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The same can be said about NCTM standards.
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Who determined that discriminating against students due to mental capabilities was a supposedly good and ethical practice?
Because in truth, that discrimination is unethical, completely invalid and harms many students. Why is the state allowed to discriminate for students’ inherent mental capabilities that the student has little to no control over such as gender, age, disabilities, race, etc. . . which are unjust and illegal?
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There should be very few disabled people – mentally and physically – in a healthy society. As such, all services should be primarily directed to normal people. So yes, the fact that Common Core takes normal children in mind is completely normal.
Increasing number of mental and physical invalids says something about our society: the quality of air, the quality of water, the quality of food, sleep deprivation, stress, late maternal age – these are the primary issues that must be dealt with.
Similarly, issues of race inequality and income inequality must be solved by ensuring equal loan rates, by outlawing redlining, by equal pay… not by busing and affirmative actions.
As it stands, the education system – both prim/secondary and high – bears the brunt of all the illnesses in the society. It should not be like this.
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BA,
Sorry to inform you that there are many students with disabilities,even in privileged families.
You expect all students to reach the same standards, as did George W. Bush.
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Everyone cannot be normal, deviations happen. The goal of a healthy society to minimize negative deviations. That is, to clean air, water, food, to make sure that giving birth at 20 will not bankrupt young family.
Bush was clearly math- and statistic illiterate. Even in the Soviet Union basic literacy rate never reached 100%, hovering around 97-99% according to government statistics.
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About 8-10% of our kids have disabilities. We live in a very unhealthy society.
When I visited the Soviet Union, I learned that they don’t count kids with disabilities. They called them “abnormal students” and put them in special institutes.
If you think their literacy rate is in the high 90s,you are swallowing Soviet propaganda.
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BA,
I don’t see your response as answers to my questions?
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“There should be very few disabled people – mentally and physically – in a healthy society.”
Actually there aren’t any disabled people in a healthy society. There are, however, tens of millions of persons with disabilities everywhere in this nation.
“Increasing number of mental and physical invalids says something about our society…”
Eugenics, anyone? Anyone?
“Everyone cannot be normal, deviations happen.”
Define normal. As for deviations, I recommend looking in a mirror.
“The goal of a healthy society…”
So, there is a one size fits all “goal”, apparently? Please enlighten us, oh all-knowing One.
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Not eugenics but lead-laced water, antibiotic-laced food, carcinogenic fire retardants in carpeting and furniture, polluted air. Add to this late maternity age, poverty, malnutrition — tons of reasons why 10% of the nation are abnormal. These core issues must be dealt instead of letting school dealing with kids who do not sleep well, are not fed well and whos nervous system is damaged with all the chemicals out there. But you did not read what I wrote and instead decided to blame me in eugenics.
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To BA:
You seem to me that you are abnormal = NOT the true human being with compassionate soul, loving heart, human mind and caring attitude.
All COMMUNISTS and FASCISTS are with human form, but with devious mind and devilish attitude = eat flesh and drink blood from gullible, naive, and innocent young people on earth like human trafficking, selling cocaine drug or guns.
Dogs in a poor country eat excrement and drink urine, bad people in a civilized country eat flesh and drink blood.
Please read my expression and try to think until you understand then correct your attitude, finally you can express your sincerity. Yes, normal people will read your expression then.
Today, only Saint like Dr. Ravitch and other wonderful veteran teachers try to teach you as the VERY IGNORANT AND SAVAGE MIND in a human form.
PLEASE DO NOT WRITE TO NORMAL READERS LIKE ME IF YOU UNDERSTAND. Thank you. Back2basic
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