State Ed's Colossal Mistake

There is a big brouhaha right now over the 2012-13 State Assessments; English and Math scores have plummeted since last year.  This plunge in scores is on the order of magnitude of cutting the passing (on-grade level success) rate in half all over the state.  I spent several  hours last evening analyzing the data from about 100 districts from various parts of the state, from Buffalo to Wantagh & Seaford.   The bottom line is that the tests which generated these results were a huge mistake.  

Here's why.  The simplest way to demonstrate my hypothesis is to look at the performance of two identical groups, meaning the exact same individuals, and how their on-grade-level performance was reported last year (2011-12), in 7th Grade, and compare their on-grade-level performance with this year (2012-13), in 8th Grade, for both English and Math.

The two groups I chose were this year's (2012-13) 8th graders in Seaford and this year's (2012-13) 8th graders in Wantagh.  The presumption is that, taken on the whole, each of these groups of students retained their basic intellect, abilities, skills and talents when they moved from 7th grade to 8th grade; they did not all of a sudden, as a group, get stupid, en masse over last summer's vacation.

Here's what the State Assessments produced as "performance results" from these exact same students in the exact same school, one year after the next.

Percentage of students on-grade-level per State Assessment Scores:

English...2012 7th Grade...2013 8th Grade
Seaford......74.3%....................57.3%
Wantagh....76.9%.....................46.6%

Math......2012 7th Grade...2013 8th Grade
Seaford......85.5%....................48.2%
Wantagh....89.2%.....................46.5%

Note: this comparison is of the year-over-year test performance of the exact same children in the exact same schools.

Okay, so we can just disregard these bogus results, right?

No!

Any child scoring a "1" on a State Assessment is required to have remedial services provided to her/him.

Any child scoring a "2" on a State Assessment is required to have supportive services provided to her/him.

These services cost money, and they take the time and attention of teachers and specialists to schedule and perform.  

These test results presage a colossal increase in the cost for both Wantagh and Seaford with both districts having more than 50% scoring 1 or 2 (below grade level performance) in 8th Grade Math, and Wantagh having more than 50% scoring 1 or 2 in 8th Grade English.

These abominable scores could also be absolutely frightening to teachers who could face consequences from the APPR Teacher Evaluations which REQUIRE consideration of these scores be used in their personnel ratings.  But wait!  The Commissioner has already excused the teachers from these consequences, noting that, because the entire STATE did so miserably on these tests, comparatively the teachers will all come out about equally.  In other words, these tests have just eviscerated the vaunted teacher performance evaluations which were shoved down our throats by Washington and Albany.

Colossal mistake? Definitely.  But in my opinion, a worse mistake would be to allow Dr. King to continue to serve as Commissioner of Education of New York.

Parents: take heart!  Your kids are really doing okay; it is the tests, themselves, that BOMBED!