Post by WeNeed3 on Oct 30, 2009 6:34:29 GMT -5
More students passing, but the bar is low
October 30, 2009
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
More students passed their Illinois state achievement tests this year, but a new federal study Thursday indicated that may not be cause for great rejoicing.
A new report by the National Center for Education Statistics found the passing bar of the state’s eighth-grade math test was the fourth lowest in the nation.
In fourth-grade math, the Illinois threshold to pass was seventh-lowest. The state’s reading passing point stacked up as a bit more rigorous — 12th lowest nationally in eighth grade and in the middle of the pack in fourth.
The federal study is “embarrassing” said Glenn “Max” McGee, former Illinois superintendent of schools and president of the Illinois Math and Science Academy. “We can’t stand for this as a state.”
For some, the federal analysis, based on 2007 passing bars, is just one more explanation of why far more Illinois kids are passing third- through eighth-grade state achievement exams, written specifically for Illinois, than their 11th-grade tests, half of which are devoted to the nationally used ACT college admission test.
“It really suggests that the bar [in Illinois elementary grades] is being set very low for students and the expectations are not nearly as high as they need to be,” said John Easton, director of the national Institute of Education Sciences.
Easton noted that the new study echoed one he co-authored while at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research which found that kids who just passed Illinois’ eighth-grade math test had little chance of eventually scoring well on the ACT.
The federal analysis examined even more Illinois tests and found that Illinois was one of only four states nationally whose passing bar on fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math was lower than the most “basic” level required in a key national test.
“You’re in danger of sending the wrong message to students, parents and schools — that they are doing well, when in fact the reason they look good is because the standards are so low,” Easton said.
The state eighth-grade math test has long been controversial. So many kids were failing it that in 2006 state officials lowered the passing bar from the 67th to the 38th percentile. At the time, they insisted they were not “dumbing down” the test or “gerry-mandering” the results, but merely readjusting a cutscore that was too high in the first place.
Meanwhile, results released today statewide showed the percent of kids passing all state tests rose by 1.5 percentage points this year, to 75.5 percent. Third- through eighth-graders took their Illinois Standards Achievement Tests in March, while 11th-graders took the Prairie State Achievement Exams in April.
Though more kids passed, the percent of school districts failing to meet federal muster under the federal No Child Left Behind law soared to nearly half of all districts.
And the number of failing schools required to offer kids the “choice” of a better school more than doubled.
State Schools Supt. Christopher Koch blamed the higher failure rates on a “flaw” in the federal law. No Child Left Behind requires that more kids pass their tests each year, but doesn’t fully recognize improvement that falls short of passing, he said.
This year, to avoid missing federal “annual yearly progress” targets, 70 percent of kids had to pass state tests, up from 62.5 percent last year. By 2014, all kids must pass.
“These are crunch years where your gains [in percent passing] have to be more substantial, so we expect to see more schools not making adequate yearly progress,” Koch said.
High school math tumble
In elementary grades, the percent of kids passing was up on most reading and math tests. By eighth grade, more than 80 percent of kids passed those tests.
But by high school, pass rates fell off a cliff, into the 50-percent range, and results varied wildly.
Eleventh-grade reading saw the largest jump in its history — of 3.6 percentage points — to nearly 57 percent passing.
But 11th grade math dropped to its lowest level since the ACT was folded into the Prairie State exam in 2001. Only 51.6 percent of kids passed that test.
Statewide by race, a scant 18.6 percent of African-American students passed 11th-grade math, followed by 31.6 percent of Hispanics, 63 percent of whites and 76 percent of Asians.
At No. 46 Evanston Township High School, curriculum and research director Judy Levinson was stunned when she saw a nearly 10 percentage point drop in the percent of African-American Evanston kids who passed their math tests. The school is 35 percent black and has been a leader in efforts to close the black-white achievement gap.
“I called the state and said ‘Did you really score it the same way this year?’ because the results were so different,” Levinson said. State officials insisted there were no scoring changes.
At predominately black and heavily poor Chicago Vocational Career Academy, less than one percent of juniors passed the 2009 state math test.
Chicago Vocational math teacher Carol Caref blamed an elementary emphasis on “teaching to the [ISAT] test,’’ and its generally low bar.
“If they [elementary teachers] are teaching to the test and the test is what it is, then we get what we got,” Caref said.
But on another measuring stick, the statewide average 11th-grade math score was the same as last year’s. Koch blamed the drop in the pass rate to a clump of kids stuck one point below the score needed to pass.
“The cutpoint [between passing and not passing] is not a magical point,” said Stuart Luppescu of the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research.
“It lumps kids very roughly into two groups: those that pass and those that don’t pass. That’s a crude way to do it. . . . The average score is a better indicator of the actual amount of learning kids are making.”
A “disconnect”
Koch conceded there’s a general “disconnect” between what’s needed to pass the ISAT compared to the Prairie State.
“You’re using two different tests with different cut scores that are constructed differently,” Koch said.
Illinois has joined a growing number of states committed to developing a “common core” of learning standards, but the effort won’t result in a voluntary multi-state or national test until at least 2013, he noted.
In the meantime, Koch said, Illinois hopes to win new federal dollars to pour into the five-percent lowest-scoring schools, most of them high schools. And, he said, the state is helping schools bankroll some pre-ACT tests, for use as early as eighth-grade, to get a better handle on how kids might stack up in later years on the ACT.
New results showed statewide Illinois ACT scores produced by a different group of kids — 2009 high school seniors — rose slightly, to 20.6, although even their ACT math performance was unchanged from the previous year.
www.suntimes.com/news/education/1854741,state-achievement-tests-pasing-1009.article
October 30, 2009
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
More students passed their Illinois state achievement tests this year, but a new federal study Thursday indicated that may not be cause for great rejoicing.
A new report by the National Center for Education Statistics found the passing bar of the state’s eighth-grade math test was the fourth lowest in the nation.
In fourth-grade math, the Illinois threshold to pass was seventh-lowest. The state’s reading passing point stacked up as a bit more rigorous — 12th lowest nationally in eighth grade and in the middle of the pack in fourth.
The federal study is “embarrassing” said Glenn “Max” McGee, former Illinois superintendent of schools and president of the Illinois Math and Science Academy. “We can’t stand for this as a state.”
For some, the federal analysis, based on 2007 passing bars, is just one more explanation of why far more Illinois kids are passing third- through eighth-grade state achievement exams, written specifically for Illinois, than their 11th-grade tests, half of which are devoted to the nationally used ACT college admission test.
“It really suggests that the bar [in Illinois elementary grades] is being set very low for students and the expectations are not nearly as high as they need to be,” said John Easton, director of the national Institute of Education Sciences.
Easton noted that the new study echoed one he co-authored while at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research which found that kids who just passed Illinois’ eighth-grade math test had little chance of eventually scoring well on the ACT.
The federal analysis examined even more Illinois tests and found that Illinois was one of only four states nationally whose passing bar on fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math was lower than the most “basic” level required in a key national test.
“You’re in danger of sending the wrong message to students, parents and schools — that they are doing well, when in fact the reason they look good is because the standards are so low,” Easton said.
The state eighth-grade math test has long been controversial. So many kids were failing it that in 2006 state officials lowered the passing bar from the 67th to the 38th percentile. At the time, they insisted they were not “dumbing down” the test or “gerry-mandering” the results, but merely readjusting a cutscore that was too high in the first place.
Meanwhile, results released today statewide showed the percent of kids passing all state tests rose by 1.5 percentage points this year, to 75.5 percent. Third- through eighth-graders took their Illinois Standards Achievement Tests in March, while 11th-graders took the Prairie State Achievement Exams in April.
Though more kids passed, the percent of school districts failing to meet federal muster under the federal No Child Left Behind law soared to nearly half of all districts.
And the number of failing schools required to offer kids the “choice” of a better school more than doubled.
State Schools Supt. Christopher Koch blamed the higher failure rates on a “flaw” in the federal law. No Child Left Behind requires that more kids pass their tests each year, but doesn’t fully recognize improvement that falls short of passing, he said.
This year, to avoid missing federal “annual yearly progress” targets, 70 percent of kids had to pass state tests, up from 62.5 percent last year. By 2014, all kids must pass.
“These are crunch years where your gains [in percent passing] have to be more substantial, so we expect to see more schools not making adequate yearly progress,” Koch said.
High school math tumble
In elementary grades, the percent of kids passing was up on most reading and math tests. By eighth grade, more than 80 percent of kids passed those tests.
But by high school, pass rates fell off a cliff, into the 50-percent range, and results varied wildly.
Eleventh-grade reading saw the largest jump in its history — of 3.6 percentage points — to nearly 57 percent passing.
But 11th grade math dropped to its lowest level since the ACT was folded into the Prairie State exam in 2001. Only 51.6 percent of kids passed that test.
Statewide by race, a scant 18.6 percent of African-American students passed 11th-grade math, followed by 31.6 percent of Hispanics, 63 percent of whites and 76 percent of Asians.
At No. 46 Evanston Township High School, curriculum and research director Judy Levinson was stunned when she saw a nearly 10 percentage point drop in the percent of African-American Evanston kids who passed their math tests. The school is 35 percent black and has been a leader in efforts to close the black-white achievement gap.
“I called the state and said ‘Did you really score it the same way this year?’ because the results were so different,” Levinson said. State officials insisted there were no scoring changes.
At predominately black and heavily poor Chicago Vocational Career Academy, less than one percent of juniors passed the 2009 state math test.
Chicago Vocational math teacher Carol Caref blamed an elementary emphasis on “teaching to the [ISAT] test,’’ and its generally low bar.
“If they [elementary teachers] are teaching to the test and the test is what it is, then we get what we got,” Caref said.
But on another measuring stick, the statewide average 11th-grade math score was the same as last year’s. Koch blamed the drop in the pass rate to a clump of kids stuck one point below the score needed to pass.
“The cutpoint [between passing and not passing] is not a magical point,” said Stuart Luppescu of the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research.
“It lumps kids very roughly into two groups: those that pass and those that don’t pass. That’s a crude way to do it. . . . The average score is a better indicator of the actual amount of learning kids are making.”
A “disconnect”
Koch conceded there’s a general “disconnect” between what’s needed to pass the ISAT compared to the Prairie State.
“You’re using two different tests with different cut scores that are constructed differently,” Koch said.
Illinois has joined a growing number of states committed to developing a “common core” of learning standards, but the effort won’t result in a voluntary multi-state or national test until at least 2013, he noted.
In the meantime, Koch said, Illinois hopes to win new federal dollars to pour into the five-percent lowest-scoring schools, most of them high schools. And, he said, the state is helping schools bankroll some pre-ACT tests, for use as early as eighth-grade, to get a better handle on how kids might stack up in later years on the ACT.
New results showed statewide Illinois ACT scores produced by a different group of kids — 2009 high school seniors — rose slightly, to 20.6, although even their ACT math performance was unchanged from the previous year.
www.suntimes.com/news/education/1854741,state-achievement-tests-pasing-1009.article
