How come officials could predict results on new test scores?
New scores from standardized tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards were released earlier this month in New York, and, as expected, the number of students who did well plummeted. This decline was predicted by New York State officials. How did they know? Here to explain in an eye-opening piece is award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York, who has for more than a year chronicled on the test-driven reform in her state (here, and here and hereand here, for example). Burris was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is the co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It has been signed by more than 1,535 New York principals and more than 6,500 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens. You can read the letter by clicking here. (Update: New details)
By Carol Burris
The mystery and complexity that surrounds the setting of test cut-scores evoke feelings of awe and puzzlement. It is a method as stupefying as those used by the Amazing Kreskin to make predictions and read minds. We, the audience, are to suspend our