The Test Results Are In: Now What?
There’s a story told of a physician who tells a patient: “Your test results are in, and I have both good news and bad news to share with you. Which would you like to hear first?” The patient asks to hear the good news first, and the doctor says: “I’m afraid the tests indicate that you have one day to live.” The stunned patient manages to ask how that can possibly be the good news. To which the doctor replies: “The results came in yesterday.”
Two days ago, a very real set of test results was released by the California Department of Education (CDE). Five years after the State Board of Education’s decision to adopt the Common Core State Standards, the CDE published state-level, district, and school-site results on tests that are specifically designed to accompany the new instructional framework. Despite the efforts of state education leaders to tamp down expectations in advance of the roll out, the data arrived with a resounding thud. And while the prognosis for the test takers is sure to be less dire than that of our fictional patient, the fate of the tests is anything but certain.
The California test results suggest that the majority of public school students are failing to make sufficient progress toward college and career readiness. Only 44 percent met or exceeded the proficiency level in English Language Arts and Literacy, and a mere 33 percent demonstrated proficiency in Mathematics.
English language learners and minority students fared considerably worse than the general population of test-takers, which consisted of approximately 3.2 million students enrolled in grades 3-7, and grade 11. (Fewer than one percent of pupils exercised the option to sit out the tests, which were administered this past spring.) Among all English language learners, 65 percent obtained scores that placed them in the lowest of four classifications used to designate levels of achievement: Standard Not Met, Standard Nearly Met, Standard Met, and Standard Exceeded. Among African-American test-takers, 46 percent placed in the lowest category. For Hispanic students, the figure was 39 percent, and for pupils from low-income families, it was 41 percent. By contrast, only 12 percent of Asian test-takers, and 23 percent of white students produced scores that placed them in the lowest classification.
The CDE merits high marks for creating a web interface that makes the test results easily accessible, and permits user-friendly explorations of various data sets. At the same time, the Department flunks when it comes to providing any kind of context into which the new test scores may be placed. Indeed, CDE decision makers have gone out of their way to foreclose any comparisons to previous test scores, even going so far as to have removed all prior year state assessment results from the Department’s website. In a press release issued simultaneously with the publication of the test results, the CDE expressed the following caution:
Because 2015 is the first year of the new tests and because they are substantially different from their predecessors…the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results will serve as a baseline from which to measure future progress and should not be compared to results from the state’s previous assessments, the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.
In an accompanying press conference, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson referred to the results as a “starting point.” And, on the new state assessments home page, Mr. Torlakson is quoted, thusly:
This year, we replaced the former paper-based exams with new, computer-based assessments in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Because they are based on more challenging academic standards, the new tests are too fundamentally different to compare old scores with new.
With that, the past has vanished. While it is undeniable that the new tests differ significantly from their predecessors, both in form and substance, it is unfortunate that the CDE has chosen to act as if student achievement must now be considered a tabula rasa. If direct comparisons between the new, Smarter Balanced assessment scores, and the previous STAR (Standardized Testing and Reporting) tests may prove difficult, others will, surely, volunteer indirect comparisons should the CDE continue to sit on the sidelines. In fact, this Los Angeles Times article has already done so:
Under the Common Core-linked test, 40% of California third-graders scored at grade level or better in math. That compares to 66% who did so on the former test.
One wonders how private school parents, who have paid tuition out of pocket for 12 years, and who have been assured at every step of the path that their child is making satisfactory progress toward college readiness, would respond if informed that past results are to be forgotten, and suddenly told that their high school senior isn’t prepared for the next academic level. Imagine their ire when informed by school authorities that the new circumstances are a positive development…a consequence of the adoption of higher academic standards.
Tuition notwithstanding, there will be no shortage of public school parents who raise similar questions. The California state standards predating the adoption of the Common Core State Standards were widely considered to be among the most rigorous in the nation. The decision to sign on to the Common Core was largely political, coming as it did as the price of admission for a stronger application for federal Race to the Top funds – an application that was twice denied owing to the lack of buy-in by the teachers unions. In any event, it’s not so much the standards that reflect a quantum leap in rigor, as the tests, themselves. And if one should wonder why the former tests were relatively lax, one’s musings might profitably consider the need to achieve ‘adequate yearly progress’ as was required by the federal No Child Left Behind act. Indeed, the footprint of federal education policy rests upon California’s current test score predicament like a boot on the neck.
Some degree of finger pointing is bound to ensue. Parents are certain to be upset. New demands for teacher accountability will arise. The teachers unions will respond by exhorting law makers to increase the state’s investment in K-12 education. (Governor Brown has already allocated more than $2 billion to help teachers transition into the implementation of the new standards and the introduction of the new testing instrumentation. That’s more than $6,000 per teacher.) General improvement in test scores may prove insufficient to protect the new standards and assessment regimen from a truncated shelf life. If the ‘achievement gap’ persists (or widens), if charter schools outperform ‘traditional’ public schools, or if politicians begin to feel enough heat from disgruntled constituents, the Common Core era will go gentle into that good night of curricular innovations, to be succeeded by the next great hope. Whatever that might be, it is certain to be ushered in with great fanfare and the highest of expectations.
