The Daily Gazette
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
http://www.dailygazette.com/
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Common Core results set for release today
50 percent of questions from 2015 state exams released
By Ned Campbell
CAPITAL REGION — Presented with a third‐grade reading comprehension question from
the 2015 state exams, Schenectady schools Superintendent Larry Spring took his time.
“This question is not asking kids, what do you think a paleontologist is,” he said.
It was asking them what a paleontologist is — in the context of the reading, “Digging for
Dinos,” he said.
Test question
A school bus passes a sign
encouraging parents to refuse to
have their children take state
tests on Monday, April 13, 2015,
in Rotterdam.
Also online
View the test questions
The following question was on the
third‐grade state math exam. Only
33 percent of test‐takers answered
correctly:
Noel read 90 minutes each day for 6
days. Tyra read 60 minutes each day
for 8 days. What is the difference, in
minutes, between the total amount
of time Noel read and the total
amount of time Tyra read?
A) 30
B) 40
C) 60
D) 80
(Answer: C)
The question, one of dozens of reading
and math questions released Monday by
the state Education Department, reads as
follows:
Based on paragraphs 2 and 7, a
“paleontologist” is a person who mainly:
a) digs deep in the ground
b) studies ancient animal bones
c) leads a big team
d) finds complete animal skeletons
Paleontologists definitely dig in the
ground, study ancient animal bones and
lead big teams, and sometimes they find
complete animal skeletons, the
Schenectady superintendent said. But in
the story, a boy named Benny goes on a dinosaur dig with his family only to
learn from a paleontologist named Dan that he won’t be doing any digging.
There’s no evidence of a big team. Benny also learns from Dan that
paleontologists hardly ever find complete skeletons.
“They might aim for that, but it’s not what they really find,” Spring said.
“So being able to do that kind of differentiating and reasoning as a third‐grader, I think it’s an important thing for us to
begin to think about.
“That’s the kind of reasoning that we need to be teaching for our kids as they go through these kinds of things.”
He said that level of critical thinking isn’t asking too much of students — “I think we don’t ask kids to do enough critical
thinking.” But he said multiple choice is not the way to measure it.
“Multiple choice is a bad tool for measuring those really higher‐order thinking skills,” he said.
The answer: B) studies ancient animal bones. The question stumped 46 percent of third‐graders statewide.
The Education Department released 50 percent of the 2015 English and math questions for grades three through eight,
along with answer keys, standards measured and the percentage of students who answered correctly, on its website,
www.engageny.org.
The department released the same percentage of answers last year after releasing just 25 percent in 2013.
The results of the latest round of Common Core‐based state exams will be released today. Statewide last year, only 31
percent of students passed the English exams and 36 percent passed the math tests. Test results plummeted in 2013
with the implementation of the more rigorous Common Core standards, and thousands of parents have kept students
home from the exams in protest.
Spring said he hopes the district’s passing rate will be level with last year’s, which was 13 percent, because more
students opted out this year, and he expected a lot of those students to pass. The district’s opt‐out rate, at 5 percent,
was still low compared to other Capital Region districts.
“If we don’t go down, I take that as a sign that we’ve actually gone up,” he said.
He said as long as the state “picks a target and leaves a target, the natures of the test don’t change, the standards
don’t change,” teachers and students will begin to adapt and scores will improve.
In a letter accompanying the released questions, state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said the department has
worked to release “as much information as possible without hindering or impairing the validity or reliability of future
examinations,” in response to educators’ requests for more information.
“And now New York educators have more critical assessment information to improve instruction and student learning
through collaborative conversations, individual learning and professional development,” she wrote.
New York State United Teachers, a union that represents more than 600,000 teachers across the state, has called on the
Education Department to offer more exam information so that teachers can improve instruction — and students can
improve their test scores.
“The release of 50 percent of the questions is only halfway towards what’s needed,” spokesman Carl Korn said. “NYSUT
has consistently called for a release of 100 percent of all the questions so that the public as well as educators can see
whether these assessments are fair and developmentally appropriate measures of what students are learning.”
Elia also wrote that state exams cannot be developed without the expertise and experience of the state’s educators,
and the state’s new contract with Minneapolis‐based Quester Assessment Inc. calls for more teacher involvement. The
state ditched Pearson, of London, in favor of the smaller but more expensive company.
NYSUT is hopeful that teachers will become “full partners in the development of these tests,” Korn said. The
organization has already begun the process of having teams of teachers review the questions.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said.
Spring said the paleontologist question is an example of a question with two answers that could be right, “but one of
them is more right than the other.” He estimated that most kids would answer B (studies ancient animal bones) and D
(finds complete animal skeletons) based on their previous knowledge of paleontologists.
That differs from traditional testing questions where out of four possible answers, three are distractors and one is right,
he said.
“What I hear is that sometimes, even with staff, it’s hard to decide which they think would be the best answer,” he said.
But having access to the questions, as well as the answers, helps teachers prepare students for future exams, he said.
“Just making it hard to find the right answer doesn’t mean the kids who find the right answer are further along,” he
said. “Having the answer keys will help us begin to make sense of that.”
Reach Gazette reporter Ned Campbell at 395‐3134, [email protected] or @nedcampbell on Twitter.