Common Core test results for students tested at the end of the 2013-14 school year are beginning to be released. The youngest readers tested are third graders. Here are the results for grades 3 to 12 from the three states which have made public their results so far for the English/Language Arts tests:
- In New York, 31.3% of students scored proficient or better, meaning more than 2/3 of the one million students tested flunked the English test.
- West Virginia’s Department of Education said the majority of its students scored less than 50% on the tests, except for fifth graders who scored 51%. Third graders scored a 46% proficiency rate.
- In Missouri, 59.7% passed the test; however, minorities and low income students scored 13% worse than the rest of the students.
Although students in these states did not take the same tests, they were tested on the same concepts. Comparing the proficiency rates from one state to another is not fair since students took different tests and many eligible students opted out of taking the tests. In New York, 200,000 students refused to take the tests. These students fit the profile of white, with lower test scores, and from less needy areas. This means a large number of students who might have raised the overall state test results did not take the test.
More states are expected to release test results later this month.
New York released a prompt which its third graders were required to read for their test. NY also released six test questions related to that prompt. Click here to see the prompt and the questions. If you find the test questions hard, so did NY third graders. More than half the students missed two of the questions.
comicphonics for early readers 