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Warning: NY Aligns Scores to NAEP

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2013 //
82

New York City’s chief academic officer–a testing zealot–here announces that scores will plummet on the new Common Core tests administered last spring for the first time. They will plummet because the state decided to align its standards to NAEP, which are far more demanding than those of any state.

Over the years, many researchers have maintained that the NAEP achievement levels are “fundamentally flawed” and “unreasonably high.” If you google the terms NAEP and “fundamentally flawed,” you will find many articles criticizing the NAEP benchmarks. Here is a good summary.

What you need to know about NAEP achievement levels is that they are not benchmarked to international standards. They are based on the judgment calls of panels made up of people from different walks of life who decide what students in fourth grade and eighth grade should know and be able to do. It is called “the modified Angoff method” and is very controversial among scholars and psychometricians.

Setting the bar so high is one thing when assessing samples at a state and national level, but quite another when it becomes the basis for judging individual students. It is scientism run amok. It is unethical. It sets the bar where only 30-35% can clear it. Why would we do this to the nation’s children?

Nonetheless, these “unreasonably high” standards are now the guidelines for judging the students of Néw York.

Consequently, teachers and parents can expect to be stunned when the scores are released.

The good news is that teachers and schools will not be punished this year. The punishments start next year.

Here is the letter that went to all public schools with grades 3-8 in Néw York City:

From: Suransky Shael
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 1:54 PM
Subject: 2013 State Common Core Test Results

Dear Colleagues,

I’m writing to let you know that your school’s performance data on the 2013 State Common Core tests is now available for you to view. It is important to note that this data is embargoed by the State Education Department (SED)—you are not to share this information until Wednesday, after citywide data is released and the embargo is lifted.

As you review this information and prepare to share it with your school community, please keep in mind the context in which students took these new tests.

At its heart, our ongoing transition to the Common Core standards is about equal opportunity. It is about giving all students a fair chance to develop the skills they will need to pursue higher education and a quality job and have options that will lead to successful and happy lives.

As you know best, this shift is not easy, and so we are also making sure it is not punitive. These results will not be used to evaluate teachers this year, and students and schools will not be punished. The new tests are about developing a realistic understanding of where students are on the path to college and career readiness and adjusting support to improve students’ performance. Educators across the City are investing remarkable energy in this work; from this new baseline, we expect performance to increase.

SED has said the results will be similar to the City’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which also measures being on track for college and career readiness—for the City, similar scores would mean proficiency rates around 25-30 percent. Scores for individual student populations could be lower. These numbers might be familiar—in addition to our NAEP scores, the City’s College Readiness Index is also in this range—but seeing these results may still be jarring at first for you, your school community, and the public.

To access your school’s embargoed results now, you may view the State’s verification reports in L2RPT. After the public release, your school’s results will also be made available through the DOE public website, ATS, ARIS, and ARIS Parent Link; see below for a general timeline of when test results are expected in each system. If you need support accessing your school’s results, contact your network data support liaison.

Data System
Expected Timeline
L2RPT
August 5
DOE public website
August 7 (school-level results only)
ATS
Mid-August, within 1 week of State release
ARIS; ARIS Parent Link
Late August, within 3 weeks of State release
Item Skills Analysis reports (available in ARIS private communities)
September
Note: reports will be available according to tested year and current year enrollment; a version based on early October enrollment will be available in October.

The coming days and weeks will be challenging as we work together to explain these results to students, teachers, families, and the public. We will be providing materials and additional information in Principals’ Weekly to make sure you understand and feel comfortable discussing these results and the work ahead. And we will reiterate, time and time again, that students will not be penalized by these new tests and that they can—with hard work and support from their teachers, principal, and family—reach this new, higher expectation.

Ultimately, no one will be pleased by a measure that is expected to show fewer than 30 percent of students are on track for success after high school. But I deeply believe that this change—and the more accurate understanding that will result—is part of a transition that will benefit thousands of students for years to come, and I thank you for your leadership in supporting your school community through this time.

Best,

Shael

To: Principals of schools with grades 3-8
Cc: All cluster leaders; all network leaders; all superintendents

Categories Common Core, NAEP, New York, New York City, Testing

What is the Goal of Common Core Testing?

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2013 //
81

For months, school officials in many states have warned parents to expect proficiency rates on Common Core-aligned tests to plummet.

They have warned that the proportion of students rated proficient was likely to drop by as much as 30%.

When this happens, it will make public education in America look just as bad as the corporate reformers have been claiming.

When New York administered the first Common Core tests last spring, a copy of one fifth grade test was leaked to a Daily News reporter. She sent it to me and I studied it and concluded that the test questions were similar in difficulty to what was typically seen on an eighth grade NAEP test. I went to the NAEP website, looked at the released items and questions, and ranked the fifth grade test as “difficult” for an eighth grader.

Here is a report that I just received from the testing coordinator of a high-performing school in one of the best districts in New York:

“Just to let you know that because I am my school’s test coordinator I just looked at the scores for the ELA.  We are a “high achieving” school.  Last year only 5 students in grades 3, 4 and 5 got a level 1.  Now it is 32. Approximately 40% of our students scored levels 3 and 4 this year down from about 80% last year.  What does this mean?  Nothing because a test that measures skills that could not possibly be taught and is developmentally too hard is INVALID.”

So why the rush to make the tests so hard that more students will fail?

Rick Hess wrote last fall that many of the “reformers” believe that the terrible results (eagerly anticipated by them) will cause suburban parents to demand “reforms” and an escape from their neighborhood schools.

I can’t help but recall that David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, was the treasurer of the board of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst in its first year. If the Common Core tests produce a collapse of proficiency rates, then it makes Rhee and her attacks on public schools look good. Will everyone run for the exits and demand charters and vouchers?

Sick thought, but inescapable.

 

Categories Coleman, David, Common Core, NAEP, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Testing

Are Teachers to Blame for Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students?

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2013 //
56

Joy Resmovits, the education reporter for Huffington Post,  is usually a sharp and thoughtful reporter, but she had a bad day today.

Today she posted an article blaming “bad” teachers for the achievement gap between black and white students.

Along the way, she makes some factual errors. For example, she states that the achievement gap in ninth grade reading narrowed from 1994-2012, from 33 points to 13.

But that is wrong, for two reasons.

First, NAEP doesn’t test ninth grade. It tests fourth and eighth grades.

Second, the achievement gap for eighth grade shrank during that period from 30 points to 25 points.

She says the achievement gap persists because black students get less experienced teachers (Teach for America?) and have less success in raising test scores (tautology, anyone?).

Joy should know that the achievement gap exists before the first day of school in kindergarten.

It is nourished by large socioeconomic differences.

The achievement gap is an opportunity gap.

Black students are far likelier than white students to live in poverty, to miss school because of illness, to live in bad housing, to be homeless, to have less access to medical care, to live with tremendous economic insecurity.

Their families have fewer resources to invest in them.

The fact that there is an achievement gap is not prima facie evidence that those who teach black students are not good teachers.

Frankly, it is not like Joy to sound like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Arne Duncan.

Joy Resmovits owes an apology to the many thousands of urban teachers who are hard-working, dedicated to their students, and determined to educate them despite the insults hurled their way by politicians and the media.

 

Categories NAEP, Poverty, Teachers and Teaching

The Latest NAEP Report: Don’t Believe What You Read about It

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2013 //
40

Today the federal government released the NAEP 2012 “Trends in Academic Progress.” This is known as the Long-Term Trend report. These tests seldom change in content. They are given every four years to national–not state–samples of students at ages 9-13-17.

The reports say that achievement is stagnant, but it is not true. What is truly stagnant are the scores for the past four years.

There were big achievement gains from 1971-2008 for whites, blacks, and Hispanics, and big achievement gains for students at every age level tested–ages 9, 13, and 17.

From 1971-2008, in reading, black students at age 9 gained 34 points; at age 13, 25 points; at 17, 28 points.

From 1971-2008, white students at age 9 made gains of 14 points; at 13 points, 7 points; at 17, 4 points.

From 1971-2008, Hispanic students at age 9 gained 25 points; at 13, 10 points; at 17, 17 points.

However, for the past four years, from 2008-2012, the scores have been stagnant for every racial and ethnic group and for every age group with the singular exception of Hispanic 13-year-olds and female 13-year-olds.

From 2008-2012, the acme of the high-stakes testing era, there were no gains for black students at ages 9 or 13 or 17.

From 2008-2012, there were no gains for white students at ages 9 or 13 or 17.

From 2008-2012, there no gains for Hispanic students at ages 9 or 17. At 13, Hispanic students gained 7 points.

From 2008-2012, there were no gains for males in any age group.

From 2008-2012, there were no gains for females at ages 9 or 17. At age 13, females gained 3 points.

The lesson of the new report: billions spent on high-stakes testing have had minimal to no effect on test scores.

High-stakes testing has failed.

We need to take a new course.

Categories NAEP

NY Daily News Reveals Top-Secret State Test

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2013 //
60

Yesterday I received an email from a reporter from the New York Daily News asking for my reaction to a bootleg copy of the Pearson-made fifth-grade exam for English Language Arts. This is part of the first tests of the Common Core in the state, administered in recent weeks to students in 3rd through 8th grades. Students spent about 90 minutes per day for three days on the ELA tests and repeated the process the next week in math.

I read the passages and the questions based on them. My reaction was that the difficulty level of the passages and the questions was not age-appropriate. Based on test questions I had reviewed for seven years when I was a member of the NAEP board, it seemed to me that the test was pitched at an eighth grade level. The passages were very long, about twice as long as a typical passage on NAEP for eighth grade. The questions involved interpretation, inference, and required re-reading of the passage for each question.

I suppose that is what the test-makers think of as critical thinking, and it may be, but there are also issues of what is appropriate for fifth-graders, as well as recognition that this is a timed test.

When the article appeared, I was not quoted but others agreed that the exam was above fifth-grade level. Aaron Pallas at Teachers College said the vocabulary was sixth grade. But it was not the vocabulary that was disturbing to me: it was the cognitive load, the expectation that fifth-graders could read and interpret long passages on a timed test. It would be interesting to put this test alongside released items from eighth grade NAEP. I tried doing that yesterday afternoon, and to my eye, most of the questions would be rated as “medium” or “hard” for eighth graders.

Very high-performing students may find the exam easy. I suspect it was beyond the comprehension of average fifth grade students, and extremely hard for students in the bottom half.

If this test is indicative of what is in store, It reinforces my concern that the Common Core will widen the achievement gaps. Struggling students will fail.

And by the way, read the smug, arrogant editorial in the Daily News. The editors think it is just great that many kids will fail. They are sure that the tests will reveal the poor quality of education in the city’s schools. They forget that every student in the city has been educated under mayoral control, for which this editorial board has been a consistent cheerleader. Do they understand the contradiction? Not likely.

Categories Common Core, NAEP, New York, Pearson, Testing

Good News! Excellent Results on NAEP Economics Test

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
25

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) just released the results of its Economics test for high school seniors.

Only 18% of students ranked “below basic,” which surely included high numbers of students who are English language learners and have serious disabilities.

82% are basic or above.

A remarkable 43% of students ranked “proficient” or above.

Proficient is excellent performance. Having served on the NAEP Board for seven years, I believe that a student who is proficient demonstrates A level performance.

3% of students rank “advanced.” This is A++ performance.

In any classroom where 43% of the students earn a solid A, great things are happening.

Congratulations to our high school social studies teachers!

Categories NAEP, Testing, U.S. education

What English Classes Should Look Like in the Common Core Era

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
31

Carol Jago is an experienced English teacher, author, and former president of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Jago writes here about what high school English classes should look like in the Common a core era.

She served on the NAEP assessment committee that set the ratio of 70-30 for test developers.

Here is the key point:

“What seems to be causing confusion are the comparative recommended percentages for informational and literary text cited in the Common Core’s introduction. These percentages reflect the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework http://www.nagb.org/content/nagb/assets/documents/publications/frameworks/reading09.pdf . I served on that framework committee and can assure you that when we determined that 70% of what students would be asked to read for the 12th grade NAEP reading assessment would be informational, we did not mean that 70% of what students read in senior English should be informational text. The National Assessment for Educational Progress does not measure performance in English class. It measures performance in reading, reading across the disciplines and throughout the school day.”

I would clarify further to say that NAEP was not designed to tell teachers what to teach or how to teach. That ratio of 70-30 is an instruction to test developers, not to teachers.

Categories Common Core, Curriculum, Education Reform, NAEP

A Teacher Has a Question for Hari Sevugan

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
5

Hari Sevugan, the ex-Obama spokesman and ex-StudentsFirst spokesman, has twice commented on this blog in defense of charters and high-stakes testing. In his comments yesterday, he pointed to Florida as a model of excellence, while putting down Massachusetts as not all that it claims to be. In my response, I compared Florida’s NAEP scores to those of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is consistently #1, while Florida ranks about average among the 50 states. I assume that Hari was promoting Glorida because Michelle Rhee ranked it at the top of her personal report card. It is certainly way ahead of Massachusetts in authorizing charter schools, for-profit charters, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and stripping teachers of tenure.

Today, I received a letter from a teacher in Nashville, who asked me to post the following questions to Hari. If he answers, I will post his reply.

“I am a teacher in Nashville Public Schools, who has been teaching for 14 years. I have to be honest that since I have been working on a Masters in Educational Leadership, current reform policies have been gaining my interest. I read Hari’s response on your message board, and I would like to ask him why he would slam Massachusetts’s NAEP results and in the same response hold TIMSS and PIRLS results for Florida as a progressing miracle.

“The same studies that he and the likes of him quote to put schools down and compare us to higher achieving nations are the same tests he uses to hold up academic progress for states that are using the current GERM model. I am fascinated with his spin and ability to turn the student achievement of a state rejecting (for the most part) GERM and yet in the same breath hold up a state that does not perform near Massachusetts as a model for reform.

“Please, have him explain his answer as to why bashing the progress of Massachusetts yet holding up Florida and Louisiana as the proof reform is working. In this country it is so hard to measure which reform is working due to all of the different reforms taking place. But, I do not believe Hari’s and StudentsFirst type of reform will give us sustainable results. So, this letter is really directed to Hari, I just don’t know how to get it to him.

“I hope all is well with you and the rest of your readers and please continue the good fight. The future of public education is relying on this conversation.”

Categories Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Rhee, Michelle

Hari Sevugan Responds: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
34

A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became vice-president of communications for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

I invited him to post again. I wrote:

“I hope he will write again to explain why he thinks that Rhee’s support for for-profit charters, for vouchers, and for the agenda of rightwing governors helps our society’s most vulnerable children.”

Rhee has worked closely with Governor Scott Walker, Governor John Kasich, Governor Rick Scott, and other Republicans who want to privatize education, curtail collective bargaining rights, and take away any job protections for teachers.

Many readers of the blog wrote responses to Sevugan. He responded with a letter this morning (I confess I missed it and read it first on the Huffington Post). He did not answer my questions, but he did respond to a letter from a Florida teacher and parent. I am updating this post because I did not see his comment on the blog (unlike Rhee, who has a large staff, I have no staff, not even a secretary; I read all comments myself, and I write all the responses myself, I write all my own tweets, all my own articles, all my own books, no ghostwriters).

In his comments to Huffington Post, Sevugan scoffs at the success of Massachusetts and Maryland because “only 40-50%” of students in those states are proficient on NAEP. I don’t think he knows much about NAEP’s achievement levels. “Proficient” on NAEP is not above average. It represents solid achievement. I spent seven years as a member of the NAEP governing board. Proficient on NAEP is like getting a B+ or an A. Massachusetts can be proud that half its students have such outstanding performance.

Sevugan fawns all over Florida, because Rhee gave Florida and Louisiana her highest grades. (He doesn’t even try to defend Louisiana, one of the nation’s lowest performing states on NAEP.)

But why is he so admiring of Florida? True, it is overrun with charters, both nonprofit and for-profit. But it doesn’t come close to Massachusetts (or Maryland) on NAEP.

Florida (whose education policies are tightly controlled by Jeb Bush) is far behind Massachusetts on NAEP. In fourth grade math, for example, an astonishing 59% of students in Massachusetts rank proficient (which is outstanding), as compared to 37% in Florida (slightly below the national average of 39%).

In eighth grade math, an impressive 51% in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to 28% in Florida (well below the national average of 34% proficient).

In reading, the story is the same. Massachusetts students far outperform those in Florida. In fourth grade, 51% of Massachusetts students are proficient, as compared to 35% in Florida (the national average is 32%).  In eighth grade reading, 46% of students in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to only 29% in  Florida.

Michelle Rhee gave one of her highest grades on her report card to the D.C. schools, despite their low test scores, low graduation rates, and scandalous achievement gaps. Michelle Rhee and her successor have been in charge of the D.C. public schools since 2007, yet the black-white achievement gap and the Hispanic-white achievement gap there are the largest of any city or state in the nation and they are even larger now than when Rhee took over.

If Michelle Rhee knows how to reform schools, why did she fail to do so in D.C.?

Sevugan’s letter is just more of the public school-bashing and teacher-bashing that StudentsFirst has perfected. He thinks our nation and our schools are failing. He is wrong. Our nation is the most powerful, most creative, most innovative in the world, and 90% of Americans were educated in public schools.

Sevugan obviously has never  looked at NAEP scores. If he had, he would know that the scores for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students in 2011 (the latest NAEP) were at their highest point in history.

Sevugan has a lot to learn about education. I’ll be happy to help him. The first thing he needs to learn is that the doom-and-gloom narrative of the corporate reformers is wrong. It is factually untrue, and I’ll demonstrate how wrong it is in my next book.

We have heard the same doleful complaints since the 1950s, and the peddlers of decline have been wrong every time. They are wrong now too.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Common Core and the Fiction/Non-Fiction Question

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2012 //
29

Education Week has an article by Catherine Gewertz saying that defenders of the Common Core are out in full force to quell the uproar about whether CC will mean less fiction.

It is interesting that the two loudest voices defending CC are Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, both quite conservative groups.

The way the issue is framed unfortunately misses the point, at least the point that I and others have raised.

Why do the CC standards mandate a proportionate split between fiction and non-fiction?

Who thought it was necessary to turn NAEP’s instruction to test developers into a mandate for teachers?

Who will police the implementation of the arbitrary ratios of 50-50 or 70-30?

If the ratios apply to all courses, can’t we assume that students will read “informational text” in math, science, civics, history, and other subjects, leaving teachers of English language arts to assign as much fiction or non-fiction as they want?

In the interests of clarity, here’s what I want: the ratios should be eliminated. They are an overreach. They have no basis in research or experience. There is no justification for imposing them.

I urge this not as a partisan of fiction or non-fiction, but as a partisan of common sense.

Diane

Categories Common Core, Curriculum, NAEP, Testing
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