Assessment
To laugh, or to cry: that is the question.
Reports of 2014 test scores from elementary grades through high school are coming in fast now. Some are truly comical, and others border on tragic.
As reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 13th, Georgia’s students’ performance on spring tests showed some improvement in reading, but more than ten percent at every grade level failed math. Twenty percent of fifth graders failed the math test. To put it mildly, this is cause for concern. Here’s the funny part: superintendent John Barge suggests that changing the math standards set ten years ago to the new Common Core… Continue reading
Test Score Reporting Season, 2014
According to the The Dallas Morning News ( June 6, 2012), Texas students still struggle on English tests with just 62% passing English I and 66% passing English II. The gap between white students passing the test and minorities is huge, with black and Hispanic students scoring about 30 percentage points lower. There were better results for passing rates in algebra (81%), biology (91%), and U.S. history (92%). White students’ scores were still higher, but not significantly.
What I find significant in the report is that standards for passing the tests have been lowered for the first three years of… Continue reading
