Education officials say state standards need to ‘evolve’

A day after state figures showed that 1 in 5 students in New York had opted not to take standardized exams, top state education officials struck a conciliatory tone, emphasizing the need for more collaboration with teachers and parents. 

And while the officials insisted that the state’s oft-maligned education standards and teacher evaluations are here to stay, they said there is plenty of room for compromise and improvement.  

“We’ve got to go back and rethink some of the ways we’ve done things in the past in New York,” state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said Thursday during a Q&A at City & State’s annual On Education event. “We’ve got to look at the standards and review them. We’ve got to look at assessments. Certainly we need to review assessments. And I think the whole system of evaluation, we need to review in the context of changes that come with standards and with the assessments.”

Elia, who took office last month, has already displayed a more open and collaborative tone than her predecessor, even as she continues to prioritize the same reforms. Her appointment came amid growing criticism of the state’s Common Core education standards, tougher standardized tests and, particularly among teachers unions, how those tests increasingly factor into teacher evaluations.

This week the state released its 2015 student exam scores, which showed slight increases, but the backlash had resulted in a growing number of students opting out. This year 20 percent of students in grades three through eight in the state declined to take at least one test – a substantial increase from last year’s 5 percent. This year’s 80 percent participation rate is well below the 95 percent federal minimum. Elia told reporters yesterday that the state is in talks with the federal government and that school districts with high opt-out rates could be sanctioned, although it is unclear what the specific repercussions might be.

Janella Hinds, vice president of academic high schools at the United Federation of Teachers, said during an earlier panel at the On Education conference that the opt-out movement is a “symptom of the crisis … we’re facing in our system today.”

Hinds, who is also a teacher in Brooklyn, ventured further than her boss, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, in openly criticizing the state standards and tests, arguing that teachers have to spend too much time teaching to the tests and that the scores would be more helpful if they came earlier, instead of in August, just before the start of the new school year. 

“Teachers are very concerned about assessment that doesn’t measure what students know and need to be able to do,” Hinds said. “Teachers are also very concerned about the amount of time that’s invested by the system on preparing for the test.”

Elia acknowledged the concerns while insisting on maintaining higher standards. She noted that several teachers told her recently that they had been overwhelmed by several education policy changes taking place at once: the new Common Core standards, new tests linked to the standards, required changes to their pedagogical approaches and teacher evaluations increasingly tied to the new assessments.

“So you take each of those, and each of them is a major shift,” Elia said, “and after moving through all of that, the last comment to me was, ‘But we really like the standards.’”

Responding to concerns about the time spent on test preparation, Elia said, “The big issue is we don’t have enough time for the kids as it is. We have to have it be as productive as possible. And I’m not sure how much test prep is going to be productive for students. So I think we have to rethink that and that whole idea of getting ready for the assessment.”

Elia earlier this year announced a review of the Common Core standards and the associated student exams, a step also required by a state law enacted this year.

“I support the Common Core, but I support Common Core as it evolves,” Elia said. “We need to have high standards. Does it have to be ‘the Common Core’? Does it have to be those high standards are exactly the sequence? Should we be looking at whether or not they are age-appropriate in kindergarten through fourth grade? Absolutely we should. And we should expect those people who are experts in the field, practitioners every day, to come in and use the involvement they’ve had with the standards to this point to evolve the standards to where they should be.”

Elia and state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch also sought to press a reset button, saying the rollout of the Common Core standards had been flawed but that the overheated political rhetoric had become damaging.

Tisch, who also spoke at the City & State conference, attributed the problems with Common Core primarily to a “communications failure” at every level of government about the value and importance of standardized testing.  

“To the extent that people found the testing punitive rather than helpful,” she said, “I think that was a failure on our part to communicate effectively about the relevance of testing and the importance of culling data for the purpose of improving instructional practice.”

Later, Tisch added, “I would encourage us in the great state of New York to be patient, stay the course, adjust appropriately, but never back down from the movement to higher standards.”