NAEP Scores Fall, Arne Duncan Says Nothing To See Here

Heckuva job education reformers:

For the first time since 1990, the mathematical skills of American students have dropped, according to results of a nationwide test released by the Education Department on Wednesday.

The decline appeared in both Grades 4 and 8 in an exam administered every two years as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” 

The dip in scores comes as the country’s employers demand workers with ever-stronger skills in mathematics to compete in a global economy. It also comes as states grapple with the new Common Core academic standards and a rebellion against them.

Progress in reading, which has been generally more muted than in math for decades, also stalled this year as scores among fourth graders flat-lined and eighth-grade scores decreased. The exams assess a representative sampling of students on math and reading skills in public and private schools.

 And of course reformers have all sorts of excuses for why the scores dropped:

“It’s obviously bad news,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education policy group in Washington. “We don’t want to see scores going in this direction.”

“That doesn’t mean we should completely freak out,” he added. “This could be a one-time variation, and maybe we’ll see things come back next time. But if it were the beginning of a new trend, it would be quite disappointing and disturbing.”

And:

“It’s not unusual when you see lots of different things happening in classrooms to first see a slight decline before you see improvement,” said William J. Bushaw, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies and achievement levels for the tests.

Arne Duncan claims there's nothing to worry about here, that the scores indicate nothing about the efficacy of his reform agenda, that his education reform policies will eventually show big dividends on the NAEP in the "long term," but Carol Burris says he's wrong:

It is difficult to see any real growth across the board since 2011, with math scores backsliding to 2009 levels, eighth-grade reading flat for four years, and a small uptick in fourth-grade reading that is not a significant increase from 2013, which, in turn, was not significantly different from 2011.

Considering that the rationale for the Common Core State Standards initiative was low NAEP proficiency rates, it would appear that the solution of tough standards and tough tests is not the great path forward after all. For those who say it is too early to use NAEP to judge the Common Core, I would remind them that in 2013, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used NAEP increases to do a victory dance about the states that had already implemented the Core at that time—and I never heard any reformer complain.

Two years ago, Duncan attributed  Tennessee’s, Hawaii’s and the District of Columbia’s NAEP score increases to their enthusiastic adoption of Race to the Top. Likewise, he attributed increases in Kentucky, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina to their early embrace of the Common Core.

This year, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had fourth-grade score gains in mathematics, but the rest of Duncan’s superstars had mathematics scores that dropped or were flat. All of Arne’s superstar states had eighth-grade scores that dropped or did not budge.

The District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina had score gains in fourth-grade reading this year, but so did states like Oklahoma and Vermont that have resisted Race to the Top reforms. And in Grade 8 reading, all of Duncan’s superstars had scores that were flat or took a dive.

Colorado, a state that recently received high praise from Bill and Melinda Gates for its implementation of corporate reforms, had reading scores that were flat and math scores that significantly dropped.

NAEP scores were not the only disappointment this year. A few months ago, we saw a significant drop in SAT scores—7 points in one year alone.

Although NAEP and the SAT were not designed to align to the Common Core, they measure what the Common Core Standards were supposed to improve—the literacy and numeracy of our nation’s students. Considering the billions of dollars spent on these reforms, one would expect at least some payoff by now.

As usual with education reformers, there is no accountability for the mess.

Falling SAT and NAEP scores - but hey, it's all good.

Just wait - you'll see improvement in another ten years or so.

Sure we will.

Woman Arrested For Stealing SAT Booklet

Weird test news:

WILTON — Police have arrested a 50-year-old Wilton woman in connection with the June theft of an SAT exam booklet from Wilton High School.

Laura Garbuz, of 45 Breeds Hill Place, was charged with third-degree larceny. She posted a $2,500 cash bond, and was issued a court date of Aug. 18.

According to police, the arrest stems from an incident on the morning of June 6. Police say Garbuz misrepresented herself as an exam proctor and was allowed to enter a Wilton High School classroom, where she allegedly swiped an SAT exam booklet.

A check-in person initially stopped Garbuz at the door, telling her she had to stay outside, but when that man went into the room on an unrelated issue — he later returned to find her gone — the woman went into the room and pulled off the proctor ruse, taking one of the exams from the room, police said.

The theft was discovered after the exam, when the numbered exam booklets were not collected in their proper sequential order.

Garbuz was arrested Monday in the area of Center Street and Ridgefield Road. She was later transported back to Wilton Police Headquarters, where she was processed, fingerprinted and photographed. 

In the Era of The Almighty Test, such a crime cannot be tolerated.

It's so good they caught this woman two months after the fact to emphasize the point that nothing - nothing! - is more important than test security.

Thoughts?

But Isn't The College/Career Readiness Metric All About Test Prep, Chancellor?

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY got an interview with Carmen Farina in which the NYCDOE chancellor gives more details on her plans to improve the school system.

Farina says she plans to focus on the 2nd, 7th and 10th grades as benchmarks for how children are progressing academically, socially and emotionally - how she plans to evaluate social and emotional development is beyond me, though I suspect it will have something to do with that all-purpose word these days that reformers throw around when they talk social and emotional learning - "grit".

In any case, Farina says for 10th graders she plans to use college and career readiness benchmarks to ensure that students are progressing:

Once students get to tenth grade, Fariña said, “they are most likely going to graduate.”

“Are they going to graduate in two years, three years, or four years, and are they going to be on the right path to going on to college? The college readiness rate in high school is crucial, it’s not about graduating per say, it’s about if you go to college, will you stay here,” Fariña said.

Fariña attributed part of the bleak college and career readiness figure to the emphasis on rote memorization and standardized testing, saying, “if all you’re going to do is test prep, and you’re learning for a robotic system, when you get to college that’s not really going to help you.”

So the college and career readiness figure is bleak because the rote memorization and standardized mechanization that goes into test prep harms children and makes them into robots - okay, I get that and I agree with that.

But is the chancellor familiar with how the system currently measures so-called college and career readiness?

Because unless I missed something over the last few months, I'm pretty sure it's by test scores - as in 75 on the ELA Regents and 80 on the Math Regents or 520 on the ELA and math sections of the SAT respectively.

Now the way many students hit those benchmarks - 75 on the ELA Regents/80 on the Math Regents or 520 on the math and ELA sections of the SAT - is through a shitload of rote memorization and test prep.

I know, because I've taught both (SAT prep was my first teaching job back in 2000; I teach ELA Regents classes every year.)

It's great to talk about helping students socially, emotionally and academically to be prepared for college and career, but to make believe like the metrics that measure these things are based upon anything but testing data is absurd.

Carmen Farina is a smart woman, I'm sure she knows this.

And yet, she continues to pay homage to the all-mighty test data while claiming testing data is no longer all-mighty in the NYCDOE.

Will Hiring David Coleman Backfire On College Board?

From FOX News:

The man known as the "architect" of Common Core has used his new job running the College Board to deal a devastating blow to critics of the national education standards.

The SAT was revamped to align with the Common Core Standards Initiative, the broad language and math standards adopted by 45 states despite growing complaints that it will result in nationalized control of K-12 curriculum. The announcement on Tuesday was made by College Board President David Coleman, who before taking the post in 2012, played a key role in designing Common Core.

Common Core supporters insist the program will ensure through testing a baseline level of learning throughout the nation, but critics say those tests will ensure a uniform curriculum springs up to prepare kids for the tests. Now, with the leading college entrance exam aligned with Common Core, critics acknowledge fighting Common Core could hurt students' chances of getting into universities and even property values.

“It’s a roundabout way to put pressure on states that opted out of Common Core,” said Whitney Neal, director of Grassroots at Freedom Works. “If you are legislator from Virginia let’s say, this will put pressure on you obtain material to make your district more appealing especially to homebuyers. SAT averages are often included in realtor information and high school success rate is always a selling point.” 

On the same day the SAT changes were announced, the Arizona senate voted down a bill that would have repealed that state's participation in Common Core. Although Arizona voted to participate in the program in 2010, its increasing unpopularity prompted the vote as well as Gov. Jan Brewer's move to rename the standards the "Arizona College and Career Ready Standards."

I'm going to posit a different theory for how the SAT/Coleman/CCSS alignment could play out.

The SAT has been hemorrhaging marketshare to the ACT for years and the hiring of CCSS architect Coleman was meant to staunch that bleeding.

By aligning the SAT with the Common Core, the edu-entrepreneurs running the College Board are thinking that students will decide to take the SAT over the ACT because the College Board test will more accurately reflect what they learned in school.

Thus the SAT will regain marketshare and put some distance between it and the ACT in terms of numbers of students taking the test - or so the thinking goes.

But here's the problem with that theory - the CCSS is under heavy assault all across the country and it won't be long before we start to see some states drop the standards completely.

Yes it's true that so far, CCSS supporters have managed to turn aside challenges to Common Core in various states that have seen rebellions over the standards (the most recent being Arizona last week.)

But no matter how many times proponents knock down challenges to CCSS, they're going to continue unabated because opponents to the CCSS look to be in it for the long haul.

What happens to the Common Core aligned-SAT when we go from 44 states + DC using the Core to, I dunno, say 37 states + DC using the Core?

Is the alignment of the SAT with the CCSS such a great selling point then?

Here's something else to think about.

It's just eight short years since the last SAT revamp, when they added the essay component and substituted grammar for the word analogies on the verbal section.

Here's how Peterson's described those changes:

As an example of some specific changes that have been made to the test, in 2005, the test was changed to better reflect the value of clear and effective writing. An essay was added to the test as a separate section, distinct from the verbal and mathematical reasoning sections. Students are presented with a thesis, which they may defend or reject, and are asked to complete the essay in 25 minutes. Students are free to structure their writing in any style that best conveys their point (expository, compare and contrast, or other techniques). Students may draw on any and all areas of their knowledge and experience in completing the essay portion of the test.

In the 2005 update, analogies were eliminated from the test because it was determined that they did not adequately reflect today's high school curriculum. It was also felt that the analogies encouraged memorization of vocabulary rather than reasoning skills.

Furthermore, in 2005 the math section was expanded to embrace concepts covered by most high school "Algebra II" courses. Again, the change represents an attempt to keep the SAT in step with the modern high school curriculum, and to emphasize the skills most desired by top colleges and universities.

Since those last changes to the SAT in 2005, College Board has seen the ACT overtake the SAT in marketshare and colleges largely ignore the writing component they added.

It is no slam dunk that the changes Coleman and the College Board announced last week will be any more successful than the changes College Board made to the SAT back in 2005.

Frankly, I think it's better than even money that College Board's hiring of Coleman comes back to bite College Board in the end.

The Common Core State (sic) Standards are already under widespread attack from right, middle and left and they've really only been fully adopted by a couple of states.

As more and more students and parents come into contact with the standards, we're going to see more hostility toward the CCSS and the tests and other reforms that go with the standards, like we've seen in New York State this past year.

Coleman and College Board could be changing the SAT to align with CCSS and rolling out those changes at the very same time that some states across the country start dropping out of Common Core and going on to different standards.

We'll see - boy genius/new historicist David Coleman has navigated difficult political waters before and won his way on things.

Still, we're starting to see a perfect storm of hostility arise over CCSS and I can easily see both Coleman and the SAT sinking under that storm.

Should SAT And ACT Scores Be Used For NYC Teacher Evaluations?

They might be:

A host of city public-school art, gym and other teachers will be rated next year not by their students’ work but by how their schools do on state math and reading exams.

Schoolwide results will count for up to 40 percent of teachers’ ratings in subjects that don’t have standardized tests, such as health and some languages.

State Education Commissioner John King, compelled by state law to craft the city’s evaluation system, made schoolwide results the default if principals don’t select other rating tools.

“Student scores reflect the work of many personnel, and in some schools, schoolwide measures may be beneficial to support increased collaboration and accountability amongst staff across all grades and subjects,” he wrote in his 241-page evaluation plan.

...

The plan also opens the door for high-school teachers to be held accountable for how their students do on such standardized exams as the SATs, ACTs and AP.

Those are among the third-party exams that the schools chancellor or principals can tap for rating teachers in classes where no state or city exams exist.

How would you like to have the SAT be used for your evaluation?

I'm sure College Board hack David Coleman would love that.