Oregon Becomes The Latest Blue State to Suspend All Tests of English and Math Proficiency

Back in March, New York announced it would change what is defined as "proficiency" in math and reading.

They would define deviancy down. Again.

They damaged students forever, and students will never recover -- New York calls this "the new normal" -- so they're just going to lower proficiency down to near-retard levels and give everyone their Participation Trophy and "social advancement." That's the euphemism for passing students who are actually failures and should be held back just to keep them in their social group (and to keep parents from noticing that "educators" are failing to educate).

New York will change what it takes for students to reach "proficiency" on state math and English language arts tests, calling last year's lower scores the "new normal."

A scoring committee that reports to the Board of Regents said Monday that they must take into account the results of last year's tests for students in grades three through eight to determine whether schools are showing improvement from year to year. On Thursday, the committee wanted to clarify that they must also reset scores because the tests will have new performance standards.

Last year some schools posted shocking results -- in Schenectady, no eighth grader who took the math test scored as proficient. And the scores for the third through eighth grade tests throughout the state were much lower in 2022 than in 2019, a result no doubt of the absence of in-person learning during the first year and beyond of the COVID-19 pandemic.

...

That's where last year's scores matter.

"Yes, there's learning loss between 2019 and 2022, but in some ways we don't want to keep going backwards," Perie said. "We're at this new normal. So for New York we are saying the new baseline is 2022."

The committee is resetting the lowest scores -- called cut scores -- for each achievement level on this spring's new ELA (English language arts) and math tests.

"Right now we're setting new cut scores for 2023. This is the baseline moving forward," Perie said.

Over the summer the committee will do the same for the U.S. history Regents exam, with the change taking effect in 2024.

Some teachers have been pressing for tests to be "re-normed" so that students can pass at a lower level than in previous years, reflecting their learning loss.

But the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education said the whole idea of changing the minimum score needed to be considered proficient diminishes people's confidence in the tests.

"I think that just speaks to the politics of test scores and why so many families have been joining the opt-out movement," Executive Director Jasmine Gripper said in an interview Wednesday.

...

Gripper agreed that parents should be told if their students are struggling, but said the state testing comes with big consequences: Schools with poor scores can be labeled as failing and placed in receivership.

"It destabilizes the school," she said. "The most senior staff tend to leave with their expertise."

And that's what it's all about -- teachers protecting themselves from their education-destroying campaign to give themselves all vacations during covid. If students keep showing low scores, their schools will be put into receivership, teachers will be fired, and students will be allowed (I think) to seek alternative schooling.

And we can't have that.

So we'll just change the scores and give the teachers Educator of the Year awards.

Teachers are scrambling to find alternatives to testing what students actually know -- alternatives to testing what teachers have actually taught.

She suggested adaptive tests, which offer easier or harder questions based on what the student gets right, as well as alternatives to testing.

"So you don't put a test in front of a student and completely demoralize them," she said, adding, "We're looking at new ways to measure what students know. The idea that there's more to a student than that standardized test."

Again, this is no about protecting students. It is, as always, about protecting failing union teachers.

And now Oregon has decided to go New York one better, and simply end proficiency testing altogether. Claiming it "harms students of color."

Is there any mark of excellence or any field of rigor we will be allowed to retain? Will we just destroy all standards and end all competitive fields because they "harm students of color"?

At what point do the "students of color" have to conform to general standards of achievement? Or will the standards of achievement always have to conform to "students of color's" abilities?

High schoolers in Oregon won't need to demonstrate basic competency in reading, writing or math in order to graduate for at least five more years because, according to education officials, such requirements are unnecessary and disproportionately harm students of color.

"At some point ... our diploma is going to end up looking a lot more like a participation prize than an actual certificate that shows that someone actually is prepared to go pursue their best future," former Oregon gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan told Fox News.

The essential skills requirement has been on pause since the coronavirus pandemic, and last week the Oregon State Board of Education voted unanimously to continue suspending the graduation requirement through the 2027-2028 school year.

Under the requirement, 11th graders had to demonstrate competence in essential subjects through a standardized test or work samples. Students who failed to meet expectations were required to take extra math and writing classes in their senior year -- thus missing an elective class -- in order to graduate.

Oh My God -- they weren't even being blocked from graduating. They were only being demanded to do extra work to correct the gaps in their abilities.

You know -- like schools are supposed to do!

But that's too much to demand of "students of color."

Board members said the standards were unnecessary and harmed marginalized students since higher rates of students of color, students with disabilities and students learning English as a second language ended up having to take the extra step to prove they deserved a diploma, The Oregonian reported. Hundreds of people submitted public comments opposing the move and urging the board to reinstate the standards. Many of the comments were generated from a call to action from Drazan's advocacy group, A New Direction Oregon.

Board Chair Guadalupe Martinez Zapata previously described the opposition as a "campaign of misinformation" and "artistic quality mental acrobatics."

Check out this word-salad of excuses and accusations from "Guadalupe Martinez Zapata:"

"If only they weren't automatically discredited by the myopic analysis and bigotry that follows them," Martinez Zapata said in a late September meeting, adding that "rhetoric about cultural and social norms being the underlying reason for underperformance on assessments by systemically marginalized students" was reminiscent of "racial superiority arguments."

Wow. She's straight-up saying that it's racist to expect that "students of color" can achieve proficiency in basic skills.

So who are the real racists here?

Simple reply:

"It is not bigoted, it is not racist to want your student to be able to actually learn," said Drazan, who ran as a Republican for governor in Oregon last year, losing to Democrat Tina Kotek by less than 4% of the vote.

That's just white supremacy, straight-up.

[Drazan] argued Oregon is chipping away at standards across the board, with state education officials mulling "equity grading" in lieu of the traditional A to F scale.

"They are now moving forward with an agenda that says if you cheat, you can't be flunked. If you don't show up, you don't get a zero," she said. "They're not going to have homework that they grade because having homework somehow they view as being inequitable."

"Equity grading."

They need to hide from the public exactly how much blue governments and their teachers union shock troops damaged children.

So just stop collecting the evidence.

If you give students proficiency exams, then twice a year you will have big stories about how you have stunted children's learning forever, irreparably.

If you just stop testing altogether, you just have one week of bad press. And you barely have that -- God knows the leftwing media which propagandized for school closures won't make a fuss!

Advantage: Just cancelling all testing for students.

Meanwhile, California has banned suspending students for "willful defiance" -- being intentionally disruptive and refusing to stop when a teacher demands it -- hoping that this will keep intentional disruptive students from dropping out.

Because we want them in class keeping all other students from learning, of course.

And the reason for tolerating intentional disruption...?

Why, because punishing it harms students of color, of course!

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bill that will ban "willful defiance" suspensions for middle and high school students who demonstrate bad behavior, including breaking the dress code, talking back to a teacher or using their phone in class.

The legislation Newsom signed into law, SB 274, also will prohibit the suspension and expulsion of students due to tardiness or truancy. Educators can still suspend students for more severe actions, such as physical violence, possession or use of drugs, theft or bullying.

California already bans these suspensions permanently for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and the new law expands the policy to middle and high schools.

Supporters of the bill say Black and Latino students are disproportionately affected by these suspensions. Research shows that these students are often the ones who suffer a reduced loss of learning and experience higher drop-out rates.

And yet teachers demanded that the schools close, causing these very students, who were already behind their peers, to suffer the greatest learning loss of all.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:11 PM

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