Later this month, students across the state will sharpen their pencils and sweat out more difficult standardized tests driven by a national goal to increase student achievement and readiness. That the tests will take place is certain. The debate, however, is just heating up.
Students in third to eighth grade will face English language arts and math tests adhering to Common Core Standards, national standards that were developed by looking at what students should achieve to be prepared for college. There will be more complex and advanced questions that will measure students at higher performance standards and likely result in lower test scores.
This is the first of a two-part series on the implantation of the Common Core Learning Standards. Next week, read about what the Common Core changes mean at the classroom level.
The state in 2011 mandated the new standards for this year. Ken Slentz, deputy commissioner of the Department of Education’s Office of P-12 Education, sent a memo in March to superintendents about the implementation of the new standards.
“New York State, for the first time, will be reporting student grade-level expectations against a trajectory of college- and career-readiness as measured by tests fully reflective of the Common Core and, as a result, the number of students who score at or above grade level expectations will likely decrease,” Slentz said in the memo. “The number of students meeting or exceeding Common Core grade-level expectations should not necessarily be interpreted as a decline in student learning or as a decline in educator performance.”
Big goals, low expectations
The memo references the state of Kentucky’s decline in student performance in the first year. Voorheesville Central School District Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder said the number of students meeting proficiency there dropped 30 percent. Kentucky was the first state to implement the new standards.
“The test passages we have been given are written well past the grade level for students,” Snyder said. “I am a big believer that kids can think very deep thoughts and have profound outcomes, but you have to reach them where they are and go further.”
Jody Monroe, assistant superintendent for educational programs at the Bethlehem Central School District, agreed the new standards are “more rigorous” when compared to previous assessment tests.
Monroe said students are learning English language arts and math content earlier. For example, she said a piece of literature previously taught in tenth grade is being taught in eighth grade under the Common Core.
Slentz said in his memo the new assessments would provide a “more realistic picture” of how prepared students are upon graduating from high school. He stressed no new districts would be singled out as underperforming based on testing results this year.
Timeline a sticking point for teachers
A more demanding set of criteria for student achievement has been welcomed by most in the education community, but when it comes to the particulars there is far from universal agreement.
The New York State United Teachers recently came out in protest of the Common Core Standards and released a petition on Wednesday, March 27, asking parents and teachers to call on the state to “end the obsession with high-stakes, standardized tests and return to educating the whole child.” The petition said the state “must stop placing high stakes on too many tests, given too frequently, and that narrow the curriculum.”
The petition calls upon State Education Commissioner John King, Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and her fellow board members to assert that the exams given this year would only be used for evaluating the state’s progress in implementing the new standards – not to judge teacher performance.
“The reality is … the curriculum that teachers need to understand and build lessons around for their class is not in place,” NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi said, “and any good teacher will tell you that you don’t test students before you teach what you are testing on.”
Also of concern to the teachers union is that the tests will be a component for evaluating teachers under the state’s new Annual Professional Performance Review.
Dennis Tompkins, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said the Board of Regents announced in December of 2010 the more rigorous standards would be introduced this year. Tompkins argued teachers had ample time to prepare students.
“It’s hard to understand how some can claim that they are being caught unprepared for the change. It’s equally difficult to understand why anyone would suggest that the change is happening too quickly for teachers and students, when the exact opposite is true,” Tompkins said in an email. “If we want our children to be ready for college and meaningful careers, we need higher standards — and a way to measure whether those standards are being met — and we need them now.”
A Department of Education spokeswoman referred The Spotlight to Slentz’s memo and King’s March newsletter message on all other questions related to the Common Core and declined further comment.
In the newsletter, King said waiting any longer to implement the Common Core would only hurt students.
“Some have even called for delaying the alignment of curriculum, instruction, professional development, classroom feedback and assessment to the higher standards required for college and career success in the 21st century,” King said. “But in point of fact, our students are already accountable for the Common Core. They do not have time to wait.”
King claimed only around 35 percent of high school graduates are college or career ready. These “real world” measures are why the testing standards must be raised sooner rather than later, he said.
“Every time a college freshman takes a placement exam that first month on campus, he or she is being tested against the very expectations in the Common Core. Every time a high school graduate faces a daunting task on a challenging job … he or she is being tested against the Common Core,” King said in a statement. “And quite frankly, our students are not doing well enough on those real world tests.”
The Common Core State Standards are largely adopted nationwide, with 45 states, the District of Columbia, four territories and the Department of Defense Education Activity at different stages of implementing the new standards.
But NYSUT argues the picture in the classroom is much different. According to a poll conducted by the union earlier this school year that included 1,600 teachers statewide outside of New York City, two-thirds of respondents claimed they were “pressured to move too fast to teach the new standards, while 65 percent said their students lacked access to textbooks and materials aligned to the new standards.”
An explosion of standardized testing
Before implementing changes under the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George Bush in January 2002, New York had far less standardized testing – just tests in fourth and in eighth grade for English and math.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states had to test students annually in English and math from grades three through eight by the 2005-06 school year. By the 2007-08 school years, students were required to test students once in science at elementary, middle and high school levels. The Common Core tests will replace the No Child Left Behind testing.
Including the state-developed Regents tests now necessary for graduation, students taking all the required tests will by their senior year in high school have completed at least 74 hours of standardized testing, according to an October NYSUT release.
“Teachers are speaking forcefully and eloquently on the harmful impact of too many tests, given too frequently and without giving teachers and schools adequate time to prepare students,” NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira said in a statement. “We know parents share teachers’ concerns about the state’s obsession with standardized testing.”
Demian Singleton, assistant superintendent for Instruction at the Guilderland Central School District, echoed that sentiment.
“I am very concerned the stress it is placing on teachers will cause them to focus on the test instead of creative and innovative instructional programming,” Singleton said. “It is very much a concern the shear volume of testing that is being taken right now.”
Monroe, of Bethlehem Central, said she has no qualms with the number of tests given, but rather the length of the tests themselves. She said students struggling before the Common Core Standards could also face an even greater uphill battle.
“I think the potential pitfall of that is that the students who are not able to keep up with that rigor, they could potentially fall behind,” Monroe said.
Singleton said Guilderland has tried to do as much as possible to prepare students, but the timeline to implement the standards has been the true challenge.
“We have done about as much as we possibly could to prepare students given the very quick timeline to implement it by the state,” Singleton said. “It is a major reform agenda that is taking place right now in education in New York and we are just trying to ride the wave.”