The New York State Education department has released the results of the 2015 ELA and math tests for grades three through eight. From the release:
“The State Education Department today released the results of the 2015 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Math Tests. Overall, students statewide have made incremental progress in ELA and math since 2013, the first year assessments aligned to the more rigorous learning standards were administered in grades 3-8. In ELA, the percentage of all test takers in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) remained consistent in 2015 at 31.3 compared to 30.6 in 2014 and 31.1 in 2013. In math, the percentage of all test takers in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) increased by seven points in two years to 38.1 in 2015 from 36.2 in 2014 and 31.1 in 2013.”
Prepare for an onslaught of news coverage and punditry, which we’ll be sure to share both here and on our Twitter feed. While you wait here’s three quick angles on this story that we think are particularly interesting:
The impact of test refusal
According to state education officials, twenty percent of New York State’s third through eighth graders refused at least one of New York’s standardized tests this year. How will this impact results and how will NYSED address it?
Critiquing the difficulty of the tests
As the state releases more of the actual test content, news outlets and blogs are sharing the questions with the public allowing them to discover if they are “smarter than a 3rd grader.” Are the tests too difficult?
- Can you answer more of these 8th grade math questions correctly?
- Test Yourself: 6 Questions From a Third-Grade Reading Test
The impact of test results on teacher evaluations
An interesting topic sure to get more play in the coming coverage of the score release is this case of a master teacher suing New York state over an ‘ineffective’ rating on her annual professional performance review. From the Washington Post article:
“Sheri G. Lederman, a fourth-grade teacher in New York’s Great Neck public school district, is “highly regarded as an educator,” according to her district superintendent, Thomas Dolan, and has a “flawless record”. The standardized math and English Language Arts test scores of her students are consistently higher than the state average.
Yet her 2013-2014 evaluation, based in part on student standardized test scores, rated her as ‘ineffective.'”
How can a teacher known for excellence be rated “ineffective?” And is it fair to use student test scores to measure a teacher’s success?
