EdVANTAGE Blog

Later this month, the State Education Department will release results from the latest round of grades 3 through 8 math and English language arts assessments.

Education Commissioner David Steiner and colleagues have begun traveling the state to forewarn of an expected drop-off in student success rates following state efforts to make the tests less predictable and more demanding.

The Buffalo News reports on the Commissioner’s visit to Western New York yesterday with an article titled, “Flawed tests distort sharp rise in scores by students; State education chief cites ‘grade inflation’”

The article asserts,

Weaknesses in the state’s testing and scoring systems over the last several years created what Education Commissioner David M. Steiner equates to systemic “grade inflation.”

Students who score at the “proficient” level in middle school math, for instance, stand only a 1-in-3 chance of doing well enough in high school to succeed in college math, he said.

The News goes on,

The state Education Department recently asked a group of experts, led by Harvard University’s Daniel M. Koretz, to determine how closely eighth-grade scores correlate to high school Regents exam scores — and how well those Regents exam scores correlate to success in college.

The study examined data that tracked students through various levels of education. The state also surveyed colleges and universities to learn how well high school students fare after they graduate.

The conclusion: Students in New York State are moving through elementary, middle and high school with test scores they believe to be adequate, but once they get to college, they find they are not prepared.

The Commissioner also noted discrepancies in results on state and national tests, with New York students making significant gains on the state tests, but only nominal progress on corresponding national assessments.

The News reports,

Already, Steiner said, the state has begun modifying elementary and middle school tests so they assess broader content and use more of a variety of questions. The tests will gradually become longer, too…

But that’s just the beginning. He is calling a statewide curriculum over the next few years, a move he said would lead to stronger student performance.

The paper reported mixed reactions to the Commissioner’s message among Western new York superintendents, with Buffalo superintendent James Williams harshly critical but others more receptive.

Here is an article that appeared in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal a couple months back reporting one interpretation of how SED reached its decisions to revise the state tests:  Can New York Clean Up the Testing Mess?