2 weeks Ago
Only one district in upstate New York tested in the top 25 of schools in the state last year. (Forbes) Maggie Hicks | [email protected] It’s that time of year again – New York state test scores for grades three through eight should be out any day now.
The scores, which evaluate reading and math proficiency, are based on exams students take in the spring and are often used by districts to evaluate curriculums and student progress. But parents and teachers have long questioned how effective the scores are and whether the problems they can cause for some districts are really worth it. Hundreds of parents across Onondaga County opted out of the tests last year and the “opt out” movement, which pushes parents to boycott the tests, has been growing in the area for years.
The push against state testing has reached the state and federal government as well. Last year, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.
Y.) proposed the More Teaching Less Testing Act, which would remove a requirement that schools in the state administer the tests for third to eighth graders. New York state’s department of education also proposed a plan in November to ditch a requirement that high school students must pass state Regents exams in order to graduate.
Opt out advocates say that the tests are unfair and unnecessary. They often favor wealthier districts, labeling those with high poverty rates and low scores as “bad schools.” Those who support the tests, on the other hand, say they’re essential to understanding how students are performing across the state and determining what school districts need.
Here’s what experts told syracuse.com about how to read the scores and what they can – and can’t – tell you about your child’s school district. What happens in districts with consistently low scores? Students in Syracuse and many surrounding districts have tested consistently low in comparison to the rest of the state.
Last year, the Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District was the only in upstate or central New York to test in the top 25 of schools across the state. Often people blame schools or teachers for the scores, said George Theoharis, an education professor at Syracuse University. They are used to label districts as “failing” rather than identifying why groups of students may be struggling on tests.
The test scores also typically correlate with income levels, he said. Syracuse City School District, for instance, sees much lower test scores than surrounding, wealthier suburbs. When this happens, “failing” districts are expected to find ways to improve scores.
They may scrap curriculums after just a year or continuously force teachers to change the way they are presenting a certain concept, Theoharis said. This prevents teachers from being able to adjust to specific teaching tactics and keeps stability from the students who need it the most, he said. In districts that consistently score higher, on the other hand, students have been able to keep the same curriculum for years.
“Even the most gung ho teacher who is all about this fill-in-the-blank elementary school in Syracuse has now had to learn three new curriculums, and is probably not good at teaching any of them, despite perhaps being very enthusiastic about teaching math,” Theoharis said. “That is the problem – we institutionalize for certain kids and [provide] stability for others.” Teachers also feel pressure to spend time teaching content for the tests rather than building important relationships with students, said Jaime Ciffone, the executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers.
This emphasizes breadth over depth, Ciffone said, and prevents teachers from fully exploring each concept. “We really try to go deep into concepts and really make meaning for our students, but with the pressures of the state assessments looming in the springtime of the year, there’s also this expectation to cover content,” she said. To Jeremy Dodds, the supervisor of data analysis services at the Central New York Regional Information Center, the value of the assessments outweighs the lost instruction time.
The tests allow districts to understand how students are doing in a statewide context and helps them understand what students may need to be successful, he said. At the same time, school districts can often fall into the “trap” of putting too much value into the scores since they are some of the only assessments that are shared with the public, Dodds said. While the scores provide one metric, a teacher’s evaluation of students, such as quizzes, tests or daily check-ins, are much more crucial and informative than state assessments, he said.
“It’s so high profile – it’s released to the public. It’s used as this measure of, ‘oh, how good is a school’ and it receives a ton of attention,” Dodds said. “The other data can be pushed aside, even though that other data is actually the far more important data.
” What gets left out of test scores? The tests are very narrow and don’t adapt to every students’ needs, said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a neuroscientist focused on child development. A student who is learning English as a second language, for instance, may have a difficult time understanding the question. Students who need extra support, such as additional time on a test, can’t receive those supports if they don’t have an individualized learning plan.
The questions also aren’t based on where a student may be developmentally or what they’re familiar with at school, she said. For example, a student in a rural school district may not understand a question about an urban setting, Salas-Ramirez said. Bias in questions is inevitable, Dodds said, but test makers also work to eliminate it as much as possible.
Each test includes field questions that don’t count toward a student’s score, but rather evaluate whether the question is fair and valuable to evaluate their proficiency. These questions are measured for biases and whether a question is difficult enough to determine a student’s learning level, he said. Scores on the tests also don’t reflect the culture of a school or what’s going on in the classroom, Ciffone said.
The tests are released to districts in late summer or early fall, after students have moved on to the next grade, she added, so teachers likely already know what a student needs and it’s too late to try and change their learning in a particular class. Last year, the results weren’t released to the public until December, when most students had already finished their first several months of school. “Having these scores come in in late October, early November, [they] really are not very meaningful when you look to interpret the data that comes along with them,” Ciffone said.
“Our timing of receiving these exam scores is really taken with a grain of salt, because you’re not even with the same group of students anymore.” So, what can the scores tell us? The state test scores help districts and schools evaluate how well students understand specific state standards, Dodds said. If students are achieving well on one standard, the school can determine whether they need more attention in another area, he said.
Standardized assessments also give parents and teachers a “snapshot in time” of how a student may be doing, Dodds said. While teachers conduct other assessments throughout the year that are far more important, students need to be compared to one another in order to find a metric that determines how much they’ve learned overall, he said. “You can compare yourself to any population, and the bigger the population, the better the comparison,” Dodds said.
“But without some standard, you really don’t know where somebody stands.” Since the scores are often correlated with high poverty and absentee rates, they can also be used to determine what other supports a community may need, Theoharis said. Instead of viewing the scores as a way to judge districts, they should be used to understand what students are missing outside of school.
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m. The question should be, “if in this part of our community, our kids are struggling, then what did we fail to do?” Theoharis said. The answer should include solutions beyond reading interventions or changing a curriculum.
It should involve understanding what families need or what students need to help improve the ways they learn, he said. Maggie Hicks covers education, including the Syracuse City School District and Syracuse University. She can be reached at mhicks@syracuse.
com or follow her on X @maggie_hickss ..
