EdVANTAGE Blog

Further evidence of the prominence of state educational tests and their soundness as issues:  Today’s New York Times has a front-page article discussing their role in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign for a fourth term.

The article notes, “One of the hallmarks of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s seven-year stewardship of New York’s public schools has been an intense focus on standardized tests. The change has also aroused opposition, as critics question whether an overemphasis on developing test-taking skills is overtaking more valuable lessons in critical thinking.”

The paper also recites criticisms that the tests have become too predictable, contributing to inflated scores.

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Last week, Ed Week reported that the working drafts of the national common core standards project were leaked. The three drafts: a Preamble, English Standards, and Math Standards, are all now available on-line.

A total of 46 states, including New York, agreed to work to develop these common national education standards. The effort, a project of the National Governor’s Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO – the national association for Commissioners of Education and their equivalents), is an attempt to level the playing field and respond to criticisms that some states have lowered standards in order to raise graduation rates.

The initial leaked drafts have provoked some controversy – both for a lack of transparency in the development process, and also for the content of the standards themselves. However, the NGA/CCSSO both indicated that the standards were draft and preliminary and still subject to feedback from the Development and Work Groups, whose members were just announced.

The Council is interested in superintendent feedback on the working drafts. News outlets have begun reporting on the effort. Some Regents have expressed caution – the national project may produce standards less rigorous than would be adopted by New York otherwise, jeopardizing New York’s adoption of the project.

In addition, the project comes during a critical juncture for New York, which is currently working on new English Language Arts standards, needs to renew the RFP for its testing program, and must meet a legislative deadline for use of the data in a “value-added” testing system. At the very least, the national effort may shift the foundation on which these other initiatives are being built. Similarly, the state must outline the contours of a proposal for Race to the Top grant funds, just as the law preventing the use of student achievement data as a sole indicator for tenure decisions expires.

Clearly, much will be expected of our assessment system in the future; but assessments are meaningless without alignment to standards. Yet at this point, the development of new assessments is slowed by the wait to see if the national standards will be sufficiently rigorous for New York to adopt. Should that effort fail, New York’s standards renewal effort will restart that much further behind.