Superintendent of Education John White met with Acadiana-area school parish leaders Monday morning to outline how to interpret the results of new state tests and explain how the information will be used to monitor students’ progress.
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Ohio, which bowed out of PARCC after one year, revealed preliminary results earlier this week, showing that in most grades, fewer than 40 percent of students met or exceeded expectations with 4s or 5s on the exams. However, parents are sure to notice, for example, that the range of students proficient on last year’s ISAT was about 25 percentage-points higher. But Smith said he and his staff will be “up, down, and around the state” in the coming weeks to explain the test results to parents, educators, and lawmakers. That said, the test carries no consequences for anyone this year.
“One of things I’ve loved about this district is that it’s student-centered, not test-centered”, Lundberg said.
The state board of education adopted the Common Core standards in 2010.
“I think it’s pretty unacceptable that we don’t have more data now and that it’s not already a unified data set, and we don’t have samples for teachers to understand exactly what the performance levels are”, Smith said. He added that the State had indicated that a 30 percent passing rate on either subject should be expected; most Alhambra Unified schools passed those marks.
The results include online Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exams.
Former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett tried to persuade state officials to let CPS skip PARCC, arguing that many CPS children lacked the necessary computer skills.
ISBE will know how many opted out when district- and student-level scores become available, perhaps not until late November, Smith said.
One of the reasons Ohio joined a multi-state testing group was to be able to compare results to other states to see where Ohio was excelling or struggling. In high school, districts had the choice to give the exams in various grades, depending on the level of courses students were taking in math and English.
“I don’t foresee too much (change) and we’re not throwing out the baby with the bath water”, he said.
An op-ed in the Monday edition of USA Today tells us that when states participating in the Common Core education program receive their children’s first test results in math and reading, the results should be sobering. PARCC is a new test, based on new standards. These results provide a kind of baseline.
“Using the word cut score really bothers me”.
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On public radio’s “Capitol Pressroom” on Tuesday, Regents Chancellor Merryll Tisch said the board has discussed renaming the standards, once adjusted, the Empire State standards or New York’s Higher standards, to avoid the “politicization” around the term Common Core.
