Students score low on California’s phony Common Core tests

Follow The Money

• Let's bottom line this.  So-called "educators" have no interest in education.  Phony "tests" are devised to show how poorly students are doing so government bureaucrats can go to Sacramento and Washington and demand more money to save the children.
• Remember that since the California Gold Rush countless generations of children somehow managed to graduate from school, and go on to live full lives, without exit exams or common core "tests".

(San Francisco Chronicle)  -  California schools posted standardized test scores Wednesday for the first time in two years, and the results were not stellar.

Just one-third of the state’s public-school students were tested as proficient for their grade level in math and only 44 percent in English, state education officials said. Under the old test in 2013, 51 percent of students were proficient in math and 56 percent in English.

The officials expressed some disappointment in the new numbers, but not surprise.

“We need to be patient,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. “We've gone to higher, tougher standards.”

This was the first time students were tested on the new Common Core standards, which require a more in-depth understanding of content rather than a memorization of facts. It was also the first time students took the state tests on a computer, clicking and dragging and typing open-ended answers or essays rather than filling in bubbles on paper with a No. 2 pencil.

Across the state, 3.2 million students in grades three through eight and 11 took the English and math test.

The new test scores showed a widening of the achievement gap, with African American and Latino students lagging behind their white and Asian American peers. The gap also widened between low-income students and the rest of the test-taking population.

Seventy-two percent of Asian American students and 61 percent of white students met or exceeded state standards in English, compared with just 28 percent of black students and 32 percent of Latinos. In math, 69 percent of Asian students and 49 percent of white students were at grade level, compared wiht 16 percent of black students and 21 percent of Latino students.

And just 31 percent of low-income students were proficient on the on English test and 21 percent proficient in math, compared with 64 percent and 53 percent, respectively, for other students.

That achievement gap has long been present in state standardized testing, but it was about 10 points wider on the Common Core tests than under the old system.

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