How are NYS Testing and the Film Groundhog Day Related?
By: Marla Kilfoyle
A week ago in New York State the New York State Education Department (NYSED) released the test scores for 2016. Just a reminder, the opt-out rate in NYS last year was over 200,000 students. It does not seem that this movement will be losing steam anytime soon. NYSED, as well as some well-funded education “reform” groups, conducted a full-court press this year to break the opt-out movement in NYS.
It didn’t work!
Just a little history - Remember the Common Core was launched in 2009. Mercedes Schneider does a good job of breaking down the fact that it was NOT created by teachers but by Gates-funded fellows and testing companies. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/the-common-core-memorandum-of-understanding-what-a-story/ NY adopted the standards in 2010 and rolled them out with very little training. In 2011, John King (the current USDOE Secretary) became Commissioner of Education in NYS. In 2013, the first CC tests were given in NY. Under King, a failure narrative was manufactured for NYS in 2013 and over 70% of the children failed the CC tests.
NYS Parents educated themselves and learned of this manufactured crisis and the fact that their children were set up to fail. 55,000-65,000 chose to opt out in 2014.
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| King and Tisch listening to NYS |
After that, one would think that NYSED would have gotten their act together? Nope, it was full steam ahead, even as King and Merryl Tisch (the former Chancellor of the Board of Regents, who set education policy in NYS) toured the state listening to parents, teachers, and children tell their Common Core disaster stories.
The 2014 tests were given in April. Carol Burris and Bianca Tanis do an excellent job discussing the debacle that followed in 2014 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/17/a-painful-analysis-of-new-common-core-tests-and-the-n-y-results/
Burris and Tanis noted
Why would policymakers create tests that are designed to mark as failures two out of every three children? For the second year in a row, that is the question that New York parents are asking. The 2014 New York State Common Core test scores were recently released, and there was minimal improvement in student performance. Proficiency or “passing” rates went up 0.1 in English Language Arts (ELA) and 4.6 percentage points in math, despite the rollout of the $28 million, taxpayer-funded curriculum modules, and greater familiarity with the tests. Proficiency rates continued to be horrendous for students who are English Language Learners—only 11 percent “passed” math, and 3 percent “passed” the English Language Arts tests. Results were equally dismal for special education students; whose “passing” rates were 9 percent in math and 5 percent in ELA.
From all the “Listening” forums that King and Tisch held during 2013 into 2014, in which theyBadass Teachers Association: