Common Core must prove it’s not cash-grabbing hoax

Is national testing just a bad joke or a hoax on the American taxpayer?

In the next few weeks, the Smarter Balances Assessment Consortium, one of the two groups responsible for creating the new Common Core tests, will recommend cut scores to the Council of Chief State School Officers. As sure as you are reading this, the recommendation will be to set the cut score at a level so that only 25 to 35 percent of the student population meets standards. Or, using a glass-half-empty point of view, around 70 percent of the student population in the United States will be found not proficient, failing to meet standards. This will provide proof that schools are failing.

Then, as if that was not enough of a bad joke, students will be required to take these tests online. The groups behind the Common Core standards know full well that schools do not have enough computers to let students take these tests online. It is also common knowledge that most of the schools in this country do not have the necessary bandwidth. Experience tells us students won’t wait five, 10 or 15 seconds for a screen to move to get to the next question.

These tests have no consequences for students, no grades are attached, and after they experience frustration trying to get the computer to accept their answers, they will merely dismiss the test and fill in any answer just to end it.

These tests will not be helpful in determining student achievement. Nor will they be very helpful in identifying student needs.

As a math educator, my goal is to help students learn, not to prove I am smarter than my students or to make them feel bad. Tests are constructed to measure what students learned based on the standards they were supposed to be taught. The standards should be reasonable, attainable and appropriate. And, if we are going to require students to take tests online, the schools should have the computers and the bandwidth needed to meet the task.

Politicians are making these decisions. They will ask perfunctory questions to make themselves look intelligent. They will make demands for high standards. But make no mistake, many of these state superintendents/commissioners are not educators. Their acceptance of these cut scores will give them a bully pulpit and requests that lead to big money.

As we have already seen, one of the hotshots behind the Common Core has already moved to head ACT, another nonprofit making millions off public education. We see the primary authors of the Common Core selling books and charging high prices for school districts to hear their insights.

Identifying a high percentage of students not reaching proficiency — based on suspect and faulty cut scores, lack of computers and inadequate bandwidth — will lead these textbook companies-turned-testing/professional development companies into billions of dollars worth of business opportunities on your child’s back, at taxpayer expense.

For these textbook/testing/professional development companies to get at these booming business opportunities, they have to create failure. They have to convince everyone the sky is falling, that reforms, new books and new innovative professional development are needed, as well as more practice tests to get students ready for the test.

I have been and continue to be a supporter of the Common Core standards because they require students to have an understanding of the math they are taught, to see linkages in mathematical concepts and skills, and because students should understand how math is used every day. Having said that, there are problems in the Common Core. It is not the perfect document that some will have you believe. And if the authors of the Common Core continue to refuse to address issues, they will force supporters such as myself to pause and reconsider that support.

And if tests are created and administered with faulty cut scores that benefit only big business — not students — then I certainly will not continue to support the Common Core initiative.

So, as we prepare our students for these Common Core tests this spring, it might be wise to pay attention to what happens in November when the cut scores will be identified. Hopefully, the media will ask simple questions. Based on the identified cut score, what percentage of students do you expect to meet standards?

That answer should help us determine whether these common national assessments are a bad joke on our students and a hoax on the taxpayers expected to foot a bill, based on bogus results.

Educator Bill Hanlon is director of the Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program. He was coordinator of the Clark County School District’s Math/Science Institute and served as vice president of the Nevada State Board of Education.