Posted on 03/17/2023 1:00:33 PM PDT by grundle
Committee tells Board of Regent the lower scores are the "new normal"
ALBANY — New York will change what it takes for students to reach “proficiency” on state math and English language arts tests, calling last year’s lower scores the “new normal.”
A scoring committee that reports to the Board of Regents said Monday that they must take into account the results of last year’s tests for students in grades three through eight to determine whether schools are showing improvement from year to year. On Thursday, the committee wanted to clarify that they must also reset scores because the tests will have new performance standards.
Last year some schools posted shocking results — in Schenectady, no eighth grader who took the math test scored as proficient. And the scores for the third through eighth grade tests throughout the state were much lower in 2022 than in 2019, a result no doubt of the absence of in-person learning during the first year and beyond of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The committee handles all scoring methodology, not just this year's changes.
In setting the lowest score a student can get to reach each achievement level, teachers on the committee consider what content a student must know, the committee told the Board of Regents.
They reorganize the tests, ranking every question from easiest to hardest based on the percent of students who got it right. Then they decide how far into the test the student had to get, in terms of correct answers, to be rated a level 3, which means they are proficient.
“How much third-grade math is just enough for me to put you in proficiency,” said Technical Advisory Committee Co-Chair Marianne Perie, explaining that they decide what is borderline but “good enough.”
Then the committee considers how many students won’t reach proficiency if they set the score at that point.
That’s where last year’s scores matter.
“Yes, there’s learning loss between 2019 and 2022, but in some ways we don’t want to keep going backwards,” Perie said. “We’re at this new normal. So for New York we are saying the new baseline is 2022.”
The committee is resetting the lowest scores — called cut scores — for each achievement level on this spring's new ELA (English language arts) and math tests.
“Right now we’re setting new cut scores for 2023. This is the baseline moving forward,” Perie said.
Over the summer the committee will do the same for the U.S. history Regents exam, with the change taking effect in 2024.
Some teachers have been pressing for tests to be “re-normed” so that students can pass at a lower level than in previous years, reflecting their learning loss.
But the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education said the whole idea of changing the minimum score needed to be considered proficient diminishes people’s confidence in the tests.
“I think that just speaks to the politics of test scores and why so many families have been joining the opt-out movement,” Executive Director Jasmine Gripper said in an interview Wednesday.
Parents are realizing “that test scores aren’t a true reflection of learning,” she said, adding that changing minimum standards is nothing new. When she was a teacher, educators would encounter students who were rated as proficient but were not truly proficient, she said.
Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. spoke in favor of the tests, describing a meeting years ago in which parents were shocked that their eighth graders didn’t qualify for certain high schools based on the school entrance exams, even though teachers had given the students good grades for years. He called that “unconscionable.”
Gripper agreed that parents should be told if their students are struggling, but said the state testing comes with big consequences: Schools with poor scores can be labeled as failing and placed in receivership.
“It destabilizes the school,” she said. “The most senior staff tend to leave with their expertise.”
Board of Regents member Frances Wills also questioned the tests, saying public confidence in education has declined since state testing for students in third through eighth grades began.
“In my perspective, we’re still wrestling with that: public perception of what the standardized test means,” she said.
She suggested adaptive tests, which offer easier or harder questions based on what the student gets right, as well as alternatives to testing.
“So you don’t put a test in front of a student and completely demoralize them,” she said, adding, “We’re looking at new ways to measure what students know. The idea that there’s more to a student than that standardized test.”
“The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.”
They are deliberately dumbing down the educational system, and this started long before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19. They want people to be dumb, ignorant, uneducated, and stupid.
The IQ-Gap rears its ugly head once again.
This has been a never ending cycle. The kids aren’t learning, so they changed the meaning of proficiency decades ago. Proficient means (in many districts) that you can read or do math at or better than 2 grades below your own. If you’re in 8th grade if you can do 6th grade math you’re proficient.
Now, fast forward two decades, that 8th grader who could only do 6th grade math becomes a math teacher who - surprise - in not proficient in math.
Guess that is what happens when the percentage of supremier individuals decreases relative to the whole
The Teachers, Principles and Education controllers
need a raise, and an increase in pensions because
this makes their children more competitive and smarter, too.
Increase their control, and allow them to mandate WOKENESS
and THEIR choice of gender in their victims with
NO input from families. or the US AG will demand it.
Lowering standards is saying it without saying it.
“And they’re keepin’ the n______s down.” - Randy Newman
The new equity is for everyone to be equally ignorant.
And just like that, all the children are above average in New York State.
No child left behind lowered the standards so that 85% or more graduates cannot read or write in New York, now this will make it 100% of New York Grads will not know how to read or write.
Yep, go to a New York school, score 1 point, get a pass. Not inspiring.
Standards are racist
If the diversity warriors keep digging, they’re going to hit China. And The Group That Must Not Be Named will still score at the bottom of all standardized tests.
Dems don’t want blacks and Hispanics to feel bad that they’re stupid.......
The typical RAT response to outcomes that are not wanted — change the level to reflect the desired outcome!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink
You can send a kid to school, but you can’t make him think
the new democrats
ALBANY — New York will change what it takes for students to reach “proficiency” on state math and English language arts tests, calling last year’s lower scores the “new normal.”
A scoring committee that reports to the Board of Regents said Monday that they must take into account the results of last year’s tests for students in grades three through eight to determine whether schools are showing improvement from year to year. On Thursday, the committee wanted to clarify that they must also reset scores because the tests will have new performance standards.
Last year some schools posted shocking results — in Schenectady, no eighth grader who took the math test scored as proficient. And the scores for the third through eighth grade tests throughout the state were much lower in 2022 than in 2019, a result no doubt of the absence of in-person learning during the first year and beyond of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a couple of years, any student, who spells its name correctly will be the new standard re their test scores.
Those underachieving schools can do what the former governor of Oregon did re those pesky standards.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says illegal immigrants are “the heart and soul of our culture and the backbone of our economy”
Then she did this!
Oregon students shouldn’t have to prove they can write or do math to get a diploma, lawmakers decide!
The Oregonian ^ | Jun 16, 2021 | Betsy Hammond
Posted on 6/21/2021, 4:16:01 PM by george76
Students in the class of 2021 did not have to prove they could write or do math at a basic level to earn their diplomas. A bill headed to Gov. Kate Brown would prohibit any such requirement at least until 2027.A bill to prohibit Oregon schools from requiring students to show they can read, write and do math at a basic high school level is headed to Gov. Kate Brown after lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday. (The bill was sign by the governor, and it is now in effect in Oregone!)
The idea is to hit pause on the requirements, in place since 2009 but already suspended during the pandemic, at least until the class of 2024 gets their diplomas and for Oregon to thoughtfully reexamine its graduation requirements in the meantime. A report recommending what the new standards should be is due to the Legislature and Oregon Board of Education by September 2022.
But since Oregon has long insisted it would not impose new graduation requirements on students who have already begun high school, new requirements would not take effect until the class of 2027 at the very earliest. So at least five more classes could be expected to graduate without needing to demonstrate roughly 10th grade level proficiency in math and writing.
The decision to remove the skills requirement was largely but not entirely a party-line one, with Democrats staunchly opposing the proficiency rules and Republicans decrying what they see as a lowering of academic standards.
A spokesperson for Brown told The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday she has yet to decide whether she will sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without her signature. (She proudly signed the bill!)
Oregone, unlike other states, did not require students to pass a particular standardized test or any test at all. Students could show their ability to use English and do math via about five different tests or by completing an in-depth classroom project judged by their own teachers. In reality, most schools relied primarily on standardized tests and most students easily passed them.
But demonstrating proficiency proved most challenging for students who learned English as a second language, students with disabilities and students of color.
Officials on the Oregon Board of Education, when they enacted the “essential skills” graduation requirement more than a decade ago, said they hoped no student would be denied a diploma for lacking the skills but that schools would step up and help juniors and seniors who hadn’t mastered enough English or math to do so. Many high schools created special math and writing workshop classes for seniors who needed to demonstrate those skills to get their diplomas.
The bill calls on the diverse committee studying graduation requirements to come up with a recommendation “with the goal of ensuring that the processes and outcomes related to the requirements for high school diplomas are equitable, accessible and inclusive.”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3969771/posts
It is simple, Eliminating schools as places to learn and making them serve as day care centers all day. Beginning with breakfast, morning breaks, lunch, afternoon breaks and a dinner before going home. Maybe midnight basketball.
Teachers and their unions will still be paid. Any so called classes will be conducted by supposedly graduates, and the highly paid teachers will monitor those former classes on Zoom.
More Gardeners, janitors and other custodial care at the former schools will now require more union workers, managers and whatevers!
So our taxes will go up for the above B$!
https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/virginia-teacher-says-making-kids-behave-is-white-supremacy/
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