Category Archives: Common Core Standards

In New York, the percentage of students in grades 3 to 8 who passed the statewide “Common Core” English test in 2015 was 31.3%, about the same as in other states. In math, it was 38.1%, a little better.

However, in New York 220,000 students “opted out” of taking the test in May. 220,000 students is about 20% of all students who should have taken the English exams. That is the highest percentage of students in any state refusing to take the Common Core-aligned tests.  In some school districts the opt-out students were as high as 60% of the total. With so many parents voting against these tests by stilling their children’s number 2 pencils, what is next in New York for the controversial tests?

• The governor of New York, who has been a firm backer of the tests, is about to announce that teachers’ job evaluations will not depend on test results.

• Scores needed to “pass” these tests might be lowered. Before the Common Core-aligned tests began in NY in 2013, students needed a grade of 65% to pass high school English courses. The grade has been raised to 79% for students taking the test in 2022 (originally in 2017) but education officials are rethinking that.

• Teaching-for-the-test strategies might change. One New York City school has eliminated music and art for its algebra students so that there can be two teachers in algebra classes, one to teach the whole group and another to teach pockets of students needing more help. That school’s test results are higher than other schools’ results. Other schools are thinking of hiring specialist teachers for English and math in elementary grades rather than having one teacher teach all subjects.

It is unlikely that the tests will be scrapped completely despite nationwide opposition to the tests. Politicians and educators know US students are not up to snuff when it comes to language and math skills. International tests results on the latest PISA reading tests (Program for International Student Assessment) show the US ranks 24th out of 65 countries, with Asian countries dominating the high scores.

Stay tuned.

Georgia released school by school and county by county Common Core test results on November 16.

Results show what everyone expected:  in most schools students scoring below grade level outnumbered students scoring at or above grade level. In third grade, for example, 60.1% of students performed below grade level in English; in fourth grade, 62.9% of students scored below grade level; and in fifth grade, 60.8% of students scored below grade level.

But a closer look at particular schools shows a bleaker picture. Many schools exceeded 60% of students scoring below grade level. Several third grades around Georgia had more than 90% of students scoring below grade level. But a few schools had 70% score at or above grade level. The biggest discrepancy I noticed in a quick review of third grade raw numbers was one school that had not quite 3% score at or above grade level, and another school which had a little over 80% score at or above grade level.

Counties also showed wide discrepancies.  Warren County, a rural county with a 27% poverty rate and a small number of college graduates, showed a mean score of 442 for third graders.  Meanwhile Forsyth County, the wealthiest county in Georgia with many college graduates and advanced degree holders, showed a mean score of 544.  That is more than 100 points higher than Warren County.   Atlanta’s mean score for third graders was 493.

What does it all mean?

• Some schools are doing a much better job preparing their students for the kind of learning tested on the Milestone tests.

• Where a child goes to school matters.

Milestone test results cannot be compared to the results of students in other states because Georgia created its own tests which were given only to Georgia students. This thwarts one of the purposes of the Common Core, which is to allow a comparison of educational achievement by students all over the country.

In the future, whether a child passes to the next grade will be influenced by these test scores. For tests taken in the spring of 2016, Georgia promises test results to be made known sooner.

If you are a parent or a teacher of a Georgia public school student, you can see how your child’s school did and how your county did on these tests by grade level by going to the links below.  The data displayed is raw numbers and they are inconvenient to read.  For example, column headings are not repeated throughout the data so you must scroll up and down to find out what the numbers refer to.  Also, everything is single-spaced, and there are so many columns that they do not all fit on most computer screens at the same time.  School districts smaller than a county, such as city school districts, are listed at the end of the tables.

Spring 2015 Milestone tests grades 3 to 8 by school
Spring 2015 Milestone tests grades 3 to 8 by county
Spring 2015 Milestone tests grades 9 to 12 by school
Spring 2015 Milestone tests grades 9 to 12 by county

One of the professed goals of the Common Core curriculum is that test results of students in one state, such as Georgia, can be compared to the test results of students in another state, say Connecticut.

Click on table to enlarge it.

But the truth is, it can’t be done. Students all over the country took more than a dozen different tests this past spring. Fourteen states’ students took the same test, so their results can be compared. So can test results for students from another seven states who took the same tests. But then there are states like New York and Georgia which wrote their own tests. Student scores from those states can’t be compared to any other state’s student scores. And maybe that is the point, considering the horrible test results dribbling forth.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment System created a test used by 14 states, mostly in the western US: Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut.  Here are the results issued to date.

• California has delayed the release of its test results until September 9, even though, by law, results should have been published in August. California has also removed from its Department of Education website data of past years’ test results in ELA and math, the two subjects tested with new tests this past spring, so that comparisons between the old and new test scores cannot easily be made. Insiders say the new test results are dismal. The state blames the delay on revealing specific results on the launch of a new web site to showcase the data. California says it wants to ensure that the test results are accurate.

• New Hampshire will not release results until November, saying that since many students took the test with pencil and paper, not computer, it takes longer to score and record the results. New Hampshire has announced that its high school juniors will not take the Common Core test in the future, but will instead take an SAT exam.

• Connecticut, which released its results at the end of August, shows that 55.4 percent of students in all grades passed the ELA test. About four percent of the state’s students boycotted the test.

• In Missouri, 59.7 percent of students passed the ELA test; however, minorities and low income students scored 13% lower scores than the rest of the students. However, in June the state legislature banned future use of the test in Missouri.

• In Oregon, 47 percent of third graders passed the ELA 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.

• 48 to 61 percent of Idaho students passed the Idaho ELA test. Complete results will be out in October.

• 53 to 62 percent of Washington State’s students passed the ELA test.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness and Careers created a different test used by seven states: Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Washington, D.C.’s students also used the test. No test results have been issued.

Twenty-three other states, including Georgia, made their own tests or decided to leave the Common Core.

• In Georgia, 36 % of test takers passed the ELA tests written by Georgia.  On September 3, Georgia announced that of the third graders who took the ELA test, 36 percent passed. 26 percent did okay while 10 percent did better than okay. Almost 2/3 of students failed.

• In New York, 31.3 percent of test takers passed the ELA tests written by that state. Ten percent of eligible students opted out of taking the tests, skewing the results. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a defender of the Common Core Standards, said today he is forming a commission to revamp education in NY.

• Arizona inaugurated its own test this past spring, but results will not be announced until October.

And five states have not taken part in the Common Core: Texas, Nebraska, Virginia, Indiana and Alaska.

Was Georgia’s test harder than New York’s or West Virginia’s? No one knows. It was a lot harder than the Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) that was given in Georgia in past years, according to the state superintendent of education, Richard Woods. In a statement, he said, “Our previous assessment, the CRCT, set some of the lowest expectations for student proficiency in the nation, and that cannot continue. Georgia Milestones sets higher standards for our students and evens the playing field with the rest of the nation.”

We will have to take Mr. Woods’ word that the new Milestones test “evens the playing field with the rest of the nation” since the Georgia test was given only in Georgia, and like apples and raspberries, cannot be compared to test results in other states.

A breakdown of Georgia results will be released by the Georgia Department of Education in October, as will the results of many other states.

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.