Results Are In - Common Core Fails Tests and Kids
The Measurement
According to its website, “The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.” Its mandate to test was included in the original No Child Left Behind legislation. NAEP tests are given to a representative sampling of about 30,000 private and public school students every two years in Grades 4, 8 and 12.
NAEP, which is administered by a federal agency that is part of the national Department of Education, periodically tests students in math, reading, science, the arts, civics, geography, U.S. history, and technical literacy. The NAEP started testing students in 1969-1970, but the design of the tests used today dates to 1992. Its current testing “partners“ include the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the groups behind the national Common Core Standards, Educational Testing Service, which markets and administers the GRE and Praxis exams, and Pearson, which has a contract with NAEP to “prepare and package the assessment and all auxiliary materials; to distribute assessment booklets and materials to the test administrators for each school; to process completed student and teacher assessment materials returned from the field; to develop training and scoring materials; and to score all assessments.”
The Standard
The Common Core Standards were intended to define the reading and math skills that students should be able to do at each grade level. Development started in 2008. The 2016 high school graduating class was in fourth grade.
The Common Core Standards were officially launched in 2009. The 2016 high school graduating class was in fifth grade.
In June 2010 the final Common Core Standards were released to the public and state education agencies. The 2016 high school graduating class was in sixth grade.
By December 2013, 45 states and Washington DC, under pressure from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative, had adopted the Common Core Standards for ELA/literacy and math. The 2016 high school graduating class was in tenth grade.
By the 2014-15 academic year, every state was required to have in place Common Core aligned assessments to ensure that students were “college- and career-ready.” The 2016 high school graduating class was in eleventh grade.
The Results
In Fall 2015 the NAEP tested a representative sample of high school seniors in the 2016 graduating class. After seven years of Common Core curriculum and assessment, the NAEP tests showed:
The average performance of high school seniors dropped in math and failed to improve in reading from 2013 to 2015. Performance was also down on both tests from 1992, the first year that similar tests were used.
There was a decline in the percentage of students in both public and private schools that are rated as prepared for college-level work in reading and math. In 2013, 39% of students were considered ready for college math and 38% were Results Are In - Common Core Fails Tests and Kids:
