The Real Difference Between 2015, 2016 Common Core Test Results

How much good does it do to compare Common Core testing results from one year to the next?

Deborah Brooks, co-founder of Port Washington Advocates for Public Education, says an improvement in test scores from 2015 to 2016 doesn’t mean much.

Brooks, whose daughter hasn’t taken Common Core tests in three years, says the tests are meaningless. “It doesn’t show how well you are doing in school.”

In fact, Brooks and other education advocates believe the 2016 tests were skewed, according to NYS Allies for Public Education.

The New York State Department of Education released the results of the 2016 ELA and math exams for grades 3-8 last week, and the state average in proficiency (scoring a 3 or 4, instead of a 1 or 2) in math increased from 38.1 percent in 2015 to 39.1 percent in 2016 while proficiency in ELA improved from 31.3 percent to 37.9 percent.

So what does that even mean?

According to Brooks, there were so many changes in the testing process over the past year there is no way to pinpoint why the students improved.

But, she says, “If they did worse there’s a really big problem [with the tests, or with the Common Core itself].”

Students’ scores in the Port Washington School District decreased slightly in math and improved in ELA proficiency from 2015 to 2016. Full results can be found here.

The 2016 tests had several changes: the tests were shorter in length, students had an unlimited amount of time to finish the tests and raw scores needed to show proficiency were lowered.

“They can’t say the test scores improved because they were played with,” Brooks said. “The percentages were changed.”

In 2015, students needed a raw score of 72 percent on the tests to show proficiency. In 2016, the students had to get a raw score of 66 percent or higher, which is the lowest proficiency standard in the four-year history of the test.

“It’s really important to understand that the test has been in constant flux since Common Core began,” Brooks told Patch. “There are certain things that are happening that makes this test unreliable from one year to the next.”

In response to an anti-testing group claiming the 2016 tests were easier than previous years, the NYS Education Department called New York State Allies for Public Education’s analysis "flawed, irresponsible and misleading" and said the percentage of proficiency was lowered because the 2016 test questions were "significantly more difficult" than previous years, Times Union reports.

“It's oversimplifying things to just simply say that because a lower percentage of correct answers was needed this year compared to last year, the scores must have been rigged," New York State Council of School Superintendents Executive Director Charles Dedrick told the publication.

The changes made to the 2106 Common Core tests was a “deliberate process,” NYS Education officials said.

These changes included contracting a new test vendor with a requirement of greater teacher involvement.

The state made a contract with a new provider last year, but all of the 2016 questions were still from the for-profit company Pearson, according to the current Quester contract with State Ed. Under the same contract all of the 2017 questions are slated to be Pearson questions as well.

The Pearson test questions caused a lot of problems in the first years of testing due to many of the passages being well above the students' grade levels, according to the Washington Post.

Brooks said the state should’ve monitored different aspects of the test, such as which students took testing breaks, which students finished the tests and which students took the tests on paper or computer. “It would be interested to see who would do better,” she said regarding computer/paper testing difference. According to Education Week, students who took the PARCC test on computers in 2014-15 scored lower than students who took exams on paper.

Brooks, a Port Washington resident who is a lawyer and a mother, has been heavily involved in the standardized testing controversy since the beginning. She was consulted by Governor Cuomo Office for his Common Core Task Force Review Committee and served as a legal consultant on the Great Neck teacher evaluation case.

Do you think the 2016 Common Core tests results carry an importance? Sound off in the comments below.