DEL.ICIO.USState throws out CRCT results
Social studies tests for 6th- and 7th-graders were flawed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/21/08
No one disputes that Georgia's system for evaluating middle school students broke down this year.
How, and why, became the topics of debate Wednesday, as the state threw out the results of two social studies tests and education advocates questioned the validity of eighth-graders' abysmal math scores.
Several possible explanations emerged for failure rates that ran as high as 80 percent: New curriculum standards that may have been too vague. A complicated process for creating tests. Flawed test questions. Inadequate training in the new curriculum for teachers. An unrealistically high passing score. A long history of poor test performance by Georgia students.
Whatever the reason, the widespread failures are making Georgia's high-stakes testing even more contentious.
"Any time you have that level of failure almost statewide, you've got to go back and re-examine the test and re-examine everything associated with the test," said Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association.
The math scores were particularly troubling, Garrett said: "There are a lot of youngsters who didn't meet the standards who are known by their local systems to be great math students."
Preliminary results from this year's Criterion-Referenced Competency Test have stirred up parents and educators all week. On Monday, state School Superintendent Kathy Cox announced that 70 to 80 percent of sixth- and seventh-graders had failed the social studies exam. About 40 percent of Georgia's 124,000 eighth-graders — or about 50,000 students — failed in math.
The math results are especially significant, since students who failed the test cannot advance to ninth grade. Those students will have to take the test again this summer, and many may have to forgo vacations to attend summer school.
Further, the test helps determine whether schools have met goals set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Schools that repeatedly fall short of the goals face potentially severe sanctions.
The high failure rates have frustrated parents, some of whom weren't satisfied by Cox's decision to invalidate the social studies scores.
"This is just crazy," said Karla Penn, whose daughter Kamille failed the eighth-grade math test by five points at Shamrock Middle School in DeKalb County.
"The whole thing started with this new curriculum, and it's just gotten worse. You have students who aren't familiar with this information and teachers who don't know how to teach it, so of course this all happened.
"This whole thing is a fiasco. How can they think this is fair to the kids?"
Officials with the Georgia Department of Education sought Wednesday to calm concerns over the math results, even though about twice as many students failed this year as in 2007.
"The math test is very well aligned with the curriculum," said Dana Tofig, a department spokesman. "It is a new test, testing a brand new curriculum that's more rigorous."
Eighty-one percent of Georgia eighth-graders passed the math test in 2007. But in many other tests, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, at least one-third traditionally have failed.
"Math is an area where Georgia students have struggled for a long time," Tofig said. "This isn't out of line with what we've seen."
Cox said that while new material in math stumped some students, most will probably pass the retest. Students who fail again may appeal for promotion.
Parents, Cox said in an interview, need to accept that the revised math standards were necessary.
"As a state, we have set people up with low expectations and we didn't have a rigorous eighth-grade math curriculum until now," she said. "We were lulled into the sense middle school students were doing good work before when they weren't."
Unlike the math scores, the social studies results surprised state education officials. Cox announced Wednesday that the state will not count the scores for current sixth- and seventh-graders who took the social studies test this spring. Students would have advanced to the next grade even if they had failed the social studies exam, which plays no part in determining whether schools meet federal standards.
Cox acknowledged that the state may not have given teachers enough direction to prepare students for acceptable scores on the social studies exam. When the new curriculum came out in 2004, she said, officials tried to appease critics who complained about a new emphasis on history rather than geography in middle school.
Cox, herself a former social studies teacher, said that compromise did not work. "We put too much in the curriculum for teachers to teach and didn't get specific enough on what they had to teach," she said.
Georgia began revising its curriculum in all subjects earlier this decade, hoping that more rigorous instruction would lead to higher test performance. In math, teachers are supposed to steer students away from rote memorization and toward critical thinking skills, said Linda Segars, who trains Georgia math teachers in new content and teaching methods.
"This was never presented as, 'Immediately, we are going to see the great changes,' " she said.
The new curriculum was translated into annual tests through a complicated process of evaluation, review, field testing and more review that lasted more than a year, ending in December.
For each subject area, a committee of 12 to 15 Georgia educators developed a "test blueprint," said Tofig, the education department's spokesman, outlining the topics in which students should be competent.
That blueprint went to the state's testing contractor, CTB/McGraw-Hill, which assigned what it calls professional assessment specialists to draft questions. The company earns $12.5 million a year from a contract that is up for renewal next month.
Kelley Carpenter, a spokeswoman for CTB/McGraw-Hill, deferred specific questions about the testing program to Georgia school officials. After the test questions were written, another committee of Georgia teachers reviewed whether they aligned with the state curriculum. Approved questions were then inserted into student exams for field testing. Yet another committee reviewed the results from the field tests, checked for racial or ethnic biases and made the final decision on which questions would be on the test.
Changing both standards and testing, as Georgia has done in recent years, makes it tricky to evaluate either, said Brian Stecher, senior social scientist with the nonprofit think tank RAND Corp.
"In some ways, you're redrawing the map while you're driving," Stecher said. "It's very hard to make sure you're calibrated and heading in the same direction."
Stecher said all the results should be viewed in a larger context of what students are learning. "The right way is probably to not make so many decisions depend on a single test score," he said. "Test scores are fallible and people have to realize that."
Contact staff writers Alan Judd at ajudd@ajc.com, Heather Vogell at hvogell@ajc.com, and Laura Diamond at ldiamond@ajc.com
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More on ajc.com
- Audit upholds math standard (09/23/2008)
- Audit: Math tests that students failed were not flawed (09/22/2008)
- State needs plan for ailing school boards (09/18/2008)
- School receives honor, honored guest (09/10/2008)
- U.S. education chief delivers award to Atlanta school (09/09/2008)
- Cox reigns on '5th-Grader,' gives to schools (09/06/2008)
- Kathy Cox outsmarts 5th-graders, wins a million (09/05/2008)
- Find out tonight how smart state's school chief really is (09/05/2008)
- Kathy Cox tests smarts on '5th Grader' (09/04/2008)
- Let's discuss how bogus new math coursework is (08/27/2008)
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Comments
By alli
Sep 6, 2008 10:34 AM | Link to this
alot of my friends failed they gave them the wrong tests 6th grade`s was 7th grade`s and 7th grade`s was 6th grade`s
By Pierce
Aug 6, 2008 1:51 PM | Link to this
Hello everyone! Im a 14 year old from Covington and I was browsing the internet and I found this now I failed both the math CRCT test and the math re-test by only a few points however, I passed everything else.
Now I know what your thinking "Man he must be a real dumbass" but Im not I failed because I did not know the material. Why? because the changed the curriculam at the last second and then tested us on it.
So now I get screwed over because of a screw up in the Department of Education and now I dont get to go to High school! Now isnt there something wrong sounding to you right there?
@ Fairfax rising 9th grader. Calm down its not these peoples fault that your messed up so dont take it out on them.
By gracia carroll,
Aug 4, 2008 6:32 PM | Link to this
Until the schools get a handle on the discipline problems ( bad behavior) there will be no learning taking place. Some parents don't control at home, some parents don't care and the others have no clue how their angels behave in school
By Fairfax rising 9th grader
Jul 14, 2008 8:10 PM | Link to this
People who made this website go to hell! I'm tring to find a online test on google and I found yours. Look people I'm tring to learn more so I won't fail and I haven't failed yet and I'm tring to keep it that way but your not helping. I don't care what happened it's july and I don't want to go to school with 8th grade knowledge and droping I want a 9th grade knowledge. I'm tring to make honor roll but keep getting one c that ruins it and people like you that aren't helping. I have to find a real helpful website so bye ******** and yes I did go there you got diss bye a just turned pisst off emotional boy 14 yr old close down your website you ignorant jerks!
By brianca clark
Jun 28, 2008 1:20 PM | Link to this
i think they need to give the fifth graders another chance to because it isnt fare to them that they have to be retained agin in the fifth grade because of the crct being harder this year and teachers not being ready for this
By Marie S
Jun 24, 2008 3:30 PM | Link to this
I understand that this test is required but I do not think that promoting a student to the next grade should be based on ONE test. Incorporate that test into the grade point average. My son made a 98 in math so obviously he "gets it" He missed the CRCT by 3 points...so he doesnt go to the 9th grade? Are you kidding me?
By sd
Jun 7, 2008 2:05 PM | Link to this
As the 2007-08 school year ended, teachers were to evaluate and choose the math series they felt would best fit the standards. There was a consensus among the teachers in the county for a specific math series, HOWEVER the county decided to go with a series no one had seen or evaluated.
This series would have been great IF it began as a pilot program in Kindergarten and each year added another grade level.
Too many "higher ups" making decisions when teachers should have a say.
By me
Jun 3, 2008 3:20 PM | Link to this
i took this test, it was the ardest social studies test ive ever had, i counted when i took it, i only knew 3 answers for sure, i got my scores back today and i met the standards, just barely though, im glad they arent using the scores.
By t jones
Jun 2, 2008 8:37 PM | Link to this
The true problem that exists is insipid and undesirable to state, but nevertheless must be said. The new Georgia curriculum is aligned with standards set by GPS, which includes critical thought, problem solving, and multiple-step processes. These standards, in turn, are aligned with national standards, the basis for progressive curriculums throughout the U.S. In fact, Georgia is years behind other states, notably those more central and northern, in implementing this curriculum. This curriculum involves a greater degree of self-discipline, motivation, absorption, and reflection in order to be grasped. Simply put, it requires more than computation and recall.
Unfortunately, many students who were previously perceived as "good students" in certain subject areas were able to maintain this perception through achievement in the lower-levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of thinking skills, such as computation and recall. This curriculum calls for a focus, self-control and above all, parental intervention and participation in home study and exposure as well as school support unknown and unpracticed by many households. Behavior problems in schools continue to climb without parents exercising accountability for student actions.
The bottom line is this: The rigors and requirements of Georgia's new curriculum are here to stay. It's not some "new math" or "too tough" subject matter. It is a curriculum that simply put, requires true analysis, planning and certain processes of thought from the students. Unless student behavior problems, lack of parental support and cooperation, and the resistance to the mental rigor acquiring such thought processes are addressed, Georgia students will continue to experience difficulties with passing the CRCT. Although it is much too much pressure for students to pass or fail a grade on the basis of one test, the test now reflects the more intensive requirements of national-standards based curriculum.
Gone are the days of the watered-down test, designed to allow the students appear to be learning at a pace competitive with America at large and with the increasingly growing burdens of becoming productive, successful citizens. Parents must work hand-in-hand with the schools with providing proper home support and the appropriate dealings with behavior problems at school, instead of treating school as a type of one-stop shopping Wal-Mart, where it is the schools' sole responsibility to provide all of a child's academic, social, emotional, physical and psychological needs. The schools are not and have never been equipped nor meant to operate this way, yet it is how too many parents treat the school system and excuse themselves from personal responsibility. Paying taxes does not excuse one from properly rearing and raising children to take school seriously and show proper school behavior.
Simply put: if no accountability is placed on the parents to send their students to school ready and able to face these rigors, and if they continue to ignore many students' discipline problems, choosing instead to blame schools for these problems, Georgia students are in for a rough ride. Signed: A Teacher Who Keeps it Real
By J. White
May 30, 2008 6:32 PM | Link to this
At the beginning of the school year, are the administrators and teachers introduced to new materials suggested by the Ga Board of Education?
Do the teachers have orientation to new materials before the instructions begin?
Were there changes to the 2008 SS and Math programs?
Did teachers switch grade levels?
This incident presents a very valuable lesson, and should be incorporated into the curriculum, with students', as well as teachers'input.
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