[Ohiogift] 'Questions on the Paragraph' #2

[Will Fitzhugh]

"Think the nonsense today about process being more important than getting the right answer is something new?".....

'Our inspection also reveals, especially for the science and social studies items, a striking de-emphasis of subject matter knowledge. It was almost as though the student did not have to attend science or social studies classes to be able to answer the questions.'”

Begin forwarded message:
From: Richard Innes <70224.434 at COMPUSERVE.COM>
Date: November 26, 2013 4:34:07 PM EST
To: ECC at ED-CONSUMERS.COM
Subject: [ECC] Common Core, What a Bore, Kentucky Failed at This Before
Reply-To: "A subscriber supported, online forum for the consumers of public education." <ECC at ED-CONSUMERS.COM>


Everyone is saying there is no history to support the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.

I strongly beg to differ. There actually is solid history in the area of highly Progressive Education-influenced reform efforts. 

Consider what happened with the Kentucky Education Reform that started in 1990 and the resulting history of the now failed Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) tests in the 1990s.

Initially, KIRIS was graded even harder than the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). But, "effective" cut scores slid quickly so that by 1998 when KIRIS was thrown out, proficiency rates reported by the Kentucky program were considerably higher than those NAEP showed, even after Kentucky started to exclude large numbers of students with learning disabilities on NAEP.

By the way, "effective" cut scores are what really count, not what the state board thinks it has approved. "Effective" cut scores are whatever the testing contractor decides to use, with or without state blessing. Effective cut scores are particularly hard to keep stable when there are lots of open-response questions in the mix (another feature shared by KIRIS and the SBAC and PARCC test models).

If more people knew about the history of KIRIS (which was astonishingly like the new proposals from PARCC and SBAC), there would be far more concern about Common Core and its related assessment program. You can read more about KIRIS testing in the Bluegrass Institute's 20-year report on Kentucky's reform here: http://www.freedomkentucky.org/images/d/d4/KERAReport.pdf. If your time is limited, go to Page 12 to begin reading about the KIRIS assessments and ask yourself what is much different in the PARCC and SBAC efforts today?

Think the nonsense today about process being more important than getting the right answer is something new? Look at the "real world" KIRIS question example starting at the bottom of Page 24 in the 20-year report. A student gets a top score for the wrong answer—but he seemed to get the process, more or less.

Check out this part of the report starting on Page 26, which points out:

"Professional testing experts also had concerns about the quality of the KIRIS questions. When science and math questions were reviewed by a panel of testing experts for the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) in 1995, their report said, 

'Our inspection also reveals, especially for the science and social studies items, a striking de-emphasis of subject matter knowledge. It was almost as though the student did not have to attend science or social studies classes to be able to answer the questions.'”

As we watch high school physics and chemistry all but totally missing in the new NextGen Science Standards, don't think such mistakes are new.

In any event, you really do need to find out what happened in Kentucky with high stakes, highly Progressive testing fads. It's starting to happen now in schools near all of you.

Richard Innes
Staff Education Analyst
Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions
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“Teach by Example”
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
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