How school reform stacks up against Grade 5 Common Core test standards. (Hint: not well.) - The Washington Post:
How school reform stacks up against Grade 5 Common Core test standards. (Hint: not well.)
Scott Levy is a parent of children with attend New York state public schools. From February 2014 through February 2015, he was a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, during which he analyzed the rollout of the federal Race to the Top program in in New York State. In the following post, Levy looks at the standards set for the fifth-grade math assessment aligned to the Common Core State Standards that students took over three days last week across New York. Then he uses them to evaluate just how well school reforms set by education policymakers in Albany stack up against those standards. Hint: Not so well.
By Scott Levy
More than 1 million students, including my fifth-grade daughter, just took the New York State Common Core Mathematics Test. But there’s something about state education policy that just does not add up. Shouldn’t we hold our politicians in Albany to the same standards that the state expects from my fifth-grader? Let’s measure Albany’s education reforms against the standards outlined in the New York State Educator Guide to the 2015 Grade 5 Math Test.
As one would expect, the Grade 5 Math Testing Rubric requires students to employ “mathematically sound procedures.” Ironically, many academics have expressed serious doubts about the type of statistical procedures the state utilizes to link test scores to teacher rankings. The American Statistical Association (ASA), whose mission is to promote “sound statistical practice to improve public policy,” has cautioned that “ranking teachers by their VAM (Value-Added Model) scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality” and that “large standard errors make rankings unstable.” Furthermore, the ASA asserted “the lack of consistency among various methods using the same data alone raises concerns about the application of VAMs for high stakes decisions.” Yet Albany has upped the ante on high stakes testing, making it an overriding factor in the teacher evaluation process.
The exam also measures fifth-graders on their “ability to critique the arguments of others.” During an April 1st Capitol Pressroom interview, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was asked about the argument put forth by statisticians who believe that VAMs are unreliable. He responded, “That’s been seized upon because that’s what people have used to excite parents.” Is that response, devoid of substance on the statistical efficacy issue at hand, the Governor’s best defense? I don’t think New York parents are that naïve.
The Grade 5 Math Test is used to “assess student reasoning.” Unfortunately, the latest legislation in Albany does not pass the reasonable test. First, it has been widely documented that New York State managed the roll out of the Common Core and Race to the Top very poorly. The governor himself admitted, “Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start.” Furthermore, parents across the state have pushed back on the use of high stakes tests, and many states across the country are reducing reliance on high stakes exams. So what did Albany decide to do? Despite the poor track record, New York’s 2015 budget shifts additional power to the state at the expense of local districts and amplifies the role of high stakes standardized testing. These actions defy logic and reason.
My fifth-grade daughter recently asked, “Dad, if we spend nine hours taking state tests, how come we can’t get them back so we can at least learn from our mistakes?” I wish I had an answer that passes the reasonable test. Regrettably, the current testing program prioritizes teacher evaluations above student learning.
The state exam asks fifth-graders to “apply their knowledge to the context.” But instead of applying their policy knowledge in the proper context, the state designed a “one size fits all” policy solution. The highest-performing public schools must implement the same changes as under-performing schools. Although certain charter schools were given flexibility to opt out of the state’s current teacher evaluation program, New York’s top public schools were denied the ability to do so. On a positive note, New York State Chancellor Merryl Tisch recently started a dialogue about providing more autonomy to highly successful public schools.
Another fifth-grade test component is how to “represent and interpret data.” Albany can use remedial help in this regard. The state uses data to justify policy decisions, but its data has not always been accurate. Just recently, local districts found major discrepancies in a state report that measured the percentage of 2012 high school students still in college.
New York’s fifth-graders are expected to demonstrate “procedural fluency.” As parents understandably explored the pros and cons of having their children opt-out of state exams, they quickly discovered that the state could not fluently explain its own procedures. A message sent by a Westchester school district to families eloquently captured the situation, stating “we’ve been working with the state on a daily basis to get clarification on testing regulations. We’ve received vague and often contradictory responses.”
Lastly, it is required that a “student shows appropriate work” on the fifth-grade test. Don’t you wish we had the same level of transparency from Albany? Perhaps then we can understand how crucial reform policies that impact millions of children were embedded deep within the 2015 state budget.
