Do you solemnly swear to tell the half-truth, the partial truth and nothing like the truth? Apparently, that’s the vow press officers who work for the New York State Education Department take.
Why was half of Thursday’s announcement of the 2014 test results devoted to testimonials, mainly from selected superintendents, on how educational gains are being made due to implementation of the Common Core?
Methinks, in this blatant appeal to authority, the department protests too much.
While reporting “significant progress” since last year for all grades (3 to 8) combined — and making positive statements to account for the overall result, the state’s official announcement ignores declines registered on the English tests in grades 4, 5 and 6.
That would mean test-score declines were registered by approximately 200,000 children per grade. This is not something to be glossed over.
And on the matter of students who opted out of testing: Education Commissioner John King estimated that as many as 60,000 students refused to take the 2014 tests. Before revealing this number, he pooh-poohed the extent of the opposition to testing that more and more parents have come to see as harmful.
Since King has data on most of these children who took the test last year, why doesn’t he present a breakdown of their performance in 2013? It would provide a useful profile of this group and shed light on how their absence impacted the test-score results.
The 2014 tests were given in April and scored in May, with the results and press release issued in August. Why the delay. The same pattern was followed in 2013.
The delay is unexplained, and it feeds suspicions that the state is sitting on the results trying to figure out the most advantageous way to package them.
All this reinforces the belief that officials are operating on political grounds in deciding where to place the cut scores that delineate the performance levels students can reach. Where the cut points are set each year determines how many students are deemed proficient that year (obtaining Level 3 or 4). The state asserts that the cut scores are unchanged this year, insisting that the same level of test performance is needed from year to year for students to be deemed proficient.
Nor does disclosing half of 2014’s test questions two weeks ago, as King did, fulfill the need for transparency about the exams or rise to the standards of truth in testing. While it’s good for the public to have more items to study, the state is letting people read only the questions that it wishes them to see.
The contract with Pearson, the test publisher, stipulates that no operational item may be used again. So, why is the state inhibited from granting disclosure of all these items?
Moreover, the state’s contract with the testmaker requires that a technical report be produced by the end of the year (December) in which the statewide exams were given, and specifies the kind of detailed information the report is to contain.
The last two technical reports were not posted until July, seven months past the deadline. That is, data about the quality of the 2013 exams were withheld until after the April 2014 exams had been given.
Meaning, it appears that teachers, students and the rest of us were pushed forward without having the chance to examine the baseline 2013 tests against which the state now asserts we are making progress.
Does all of this add up to an appropriate, honest way to go?
Smith, a testing specialist and consultant, was an administrative analyst for the New York City public schools.
