Test-Refusal Movement’s Success Hampers Analysis of New York State Exam Results
With 20 percent of eligible students sitting out the New York state standardized tests this year, even some central organizers of the “opt out” movement were surprised at their own success.
But those numbers are more than just a thumb in the eye of state education officials. They also are a significant setback for the educational accountability movement in New York, which has sought to use data to evaluate educational progress on all levels, including the success of districts, schools and individual teachers. Now, in many districts with high rates of test refusals, the data has been badly crippled.
“We always said that compliance just means more of the same,” said Jeanette Deutermann, a central figure in Long Island’s test-refusal movement. “The hope was to disrupt it to the point where it cannot be used,” she continued, to where “there are not enough children taking the test to close a school, or not enough data to fire a teacher.”
Last year, about 95 percent of the 1.1 million eligible students sat for the exams, which test third through eighth graders in English and math. The state reported that 30.6 percent of students passed the English exam that year, and that 36.2 percent were proficient in math.
This year, only 80 percent of eligible students participated. Of those, 31.3 passed the English test and 38.1 percent the math, the state said on Wednesday. And while there are ways to try to account for the differences, with such a substantial gap between the numbers year to year, some statisticians say it is difficult to be sure how much students improved over all.
“Twenty percent is big enough that we don’t really know,” said Elizabeth Tipton, an assistant professor of applied statistics at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
It was even possible, some statisticians said, that the statewide passing rates would have been lower had more children taken the exams, since according to state education data, students who did not pass last year’s tests were more likely to opt out than those who passed.
Jason Schweid, a fellow at the Regents Research Fund, which advises the State Education Department on policy and testing, dismissed that.
“Anything that we project onto those students who did not take the test this year is purely conjecture,” he said.
Even with 20 percent of students sitting out, about 900,000 children still took the test, and there was plenty to be gleaned from them, Dr. Schweid said.
“That is more students taking the New York state test than in many other states with no opt out at all,” he said.
“Would I use these for a high stakes decision in terms of difference in performance from year to year across the entire state? Maybe not. But that comparison isn’t really a high-stakes comparison. It’s really a media talking point.”
When one tries to zoom in, however, say on a district or a school, things can become much more complicated. In areas with extreme concentrations Test-Refusal Movement’s Success Hampers Analysis of New York State Exam Results - The New York Times: