Louisiana PARCC Results Highly Inflated

We now have the conversion tables converting raw scores to scale scores on the PARCC tests for Louisiana, Ohio, and Colorado. That raw data and student test results demonstrate that John White and his testing company greatly inflated the Louisiana PARCC test results. Louisiana students' performance in math and English on the PARCC-like tests are being reported as much better than our student results on the NAEP testing. How could this be? Superintendent White has repeatedly assured us that the new tests given in Louisiana this last Spring are comparable to both the NAEP tests and to the PARCC tests given in other states. I believe that this issue should be reviewed by the Louisiana Accountability Commission which is supposed to be consulted by the LDOE on testing matters. Not one word of explanation has been given to the Accountability Commission about the setting of raw cut scores and no explanation has been made for the lack of compatibility of the PARCC with NAEP.

Here is what we have learned so far partially by resorting to public records requests. Ohio had published their raw test results some time ago, revealing the actual percentage of correct answers that equated to the ratings of level 3 and level 4 on the PARCC test. In Louisiana, it took a public records request signed by 33 citizens including 5 legislators and 4 BESE members to extract the closely guarded conversion tables which convert the raw scores to the new scale scores. In the case of Colorado, I owe a special "thank you" to an education activist there who at my suggestion, submitted a public records request similar to what we did in Louisiana to get the raw results and conversion tables. It is notable that neither of the state departments of education in Ohio or Colorado objected to revealing the percentage of correct answers equating to the various levels of achievement on the PARCC test. In Louisiana, John White has resisted revealing the percentage correct cut scores and tried to claim that the percentage results were not meaningful and should be disregarded.

Louisiana was originally part of the PARCC consortium of 15 states that had contracted with the Pearson Education Services Company to give a test that was designed to measure the Common Core standards. The PARCC tests were supposed to allow everyone to compare the performance of students across state lines. But when Governor Jindal decided to oppose the Common Core standards the contract with Pearson for Louisiana was nullified and Superintendent John White and BESE chose to adopt a similar contract for testing the Common Core standards with Data Recognition Corp. which had administered LEAP tests for Louisiana in recent years. John White originally assurred BESE that the Louisiana test would be the same as the PARCC test. In a LENS NOLA article, White is quoted as claiming that the Louisiana test would have the same questions and same standards as other PARCC states.

In a quote to the LENS here, White stated the following:

Students across Louisiana “took the exact same form as did kids across the country,” White said. “Same questions. Same order. Nothing different.”

But the truth that has been revealed by comparing raw scores and conversion tables in Louisiana with Ohio and Corlorado is that the number of correct answers equating to each level of performance is quite different in Louisiana compared to the real PARCC states. But even more importantly, the mix of questions on the Louisiana PARCC-like tests are apparently significantly easier compared to the real PARCC states. This means that the reported achievement level performance of Louisiana students is significantly inflated compared to the NAEP tests and to other PARCC states.

In an email to district superintendents in October 2015 White said the following:

"Attached please find charts for converting raw scores to scale scores for 2015 grade 3-8 English and math state assessments.

These are the same conversion tables as will be used in other states where these forms are active. Scale scores and cut scores derived from these conversions will be comparable with those in other states, provided that BESE approves comparable cut scores.

John"

It turns out that the conversion tables for converting raw scores to scale scores on the PARCC-like test given in Louisiana are extremely important because they reveal serious distortions of results by Louisiana. It is very obvious that John White and his testing company have drastically manipulated the results of the PARCC-like test which makes Louisiana student performance seem higher than it really is.

John White has repeatedly claimed that the new PARCC-like test will be compatible to the NAEP, which now is seen as the gold standard for comparing student performance from state to state. But an analysis of the most recent PARCC-like test results show that there are huge differences in comparison to NAEP. Those distortions really get obvious when we compare the Louisiana PARCC-like results with the real PARCC states of Ohio and Colorado.

Ohio, like Louisiana, uses level 3 performance as proficient while Colorado uses the PARCC consortium recommended level 4 as their standard for proficient. So to compare apples to apples we will ignore these arbitrary decisions on proficient and simply compare level 3 performance for each of the three states and compare also "basic" performance on NAEP which has been equated to level 3 on PARCC. So here are the key comparisons: (The + used here means performance above the Basic or level 3 standard) (ELA stands for English language arts)

• Grade 4 NAEP Reading: LA- 63% Basic or +  CO- 71% Basic or +  OH- 72% Basic or +
• Grade 4 PARCC ELA:   LA- 74% level 3 or +  CO- 70% level 3 or + OH- 69% level 3 or +

 Notice that a smaller percentage of Louisiana students scored Basic on NAEP than both Colorado and Ohio, but then a higher percentage of Louisiana students scored at level 3 on the 4th grade ELA for PARCC!

• Grade 8 NAEP Reading: LA- 66% Basic or +   CO- 78% Basic or +  OH- 76% Basic or +
• Grade 8 PARCC ELA   LA- 70% level 3 or +   CO- 66% level 3 or +  OH- 68% level 3 or +

Again, Louisiana scores much lower on NAEP than the other two states,  yet Louisiana scores higher than both Colorado and Ohio on PARCC.

• Grade 4 NAEP math:  LA- 78% Basic or +   CO- 82% Basic or +   OH- 85% Basic or +
• Grade 4 PARCC math:LA- 67% level 3 or +    CO- 60% level 3 or +  OH- 64% level 3 or +

Louisiana scores significantly lower on NAEP for 4th grade math but scores higher than both other states on PARCC level 3 for 4th grade math.

• Grade 8 NAEP math: LA- 57% Basic or +  CO- 73% Basic or +   OH- 75% Basic or + 
• Grade 8 PARCC math: LA- 55% level 3 or +  CO- 44% level 3 or +  OH- 51% level 3 or +

This is the biggest discrepancy of all! Much fewer Louisiana 8th grade students scored at the the Basic level than the other two states on NAEP, but a much larger percentage of Louisiana students scored at level 3 in math on the PARCC. The Louisiana 8th grade math score is the most inflated result of all.  This result was demonstrated graphically in this previous post on this blog by Herb Bassett. The 8th grade PARCC-like test for 8th grade math was much easier in Louisiana than for the real PARCC states.

Maybe there are other PARCC states that gave the same PARCC test form as Louisiana and used the same raw score to scale score conversion tables as were used here, but that would greatly distort and inflate their results also. This would be highly unlikely in my opinion and would surely be challenged by testing experts.

I leave it to my readers to speculate why the Louisiana Department of Education and its testing company would choose to inflate the apparent performance of Louisiana students, but by approving baseline data that is skewed and inflated, Louisiana will be assured the loss of national credibility in its student testing. That's why the Louisiana Accountability Commission deserves an explanation of the math and ELA results for the Spring 2015 testing.

It would also be helpful to have an impartial evaluation of the Louisiana PARCC-like tests by independent testing experts that are not connected or beholding to the Louisiana Department of Education or to the current regime of reformists now dictating education policy in Louisiana. If the 2015 Spring tests are allowed to stand as a baseline for measuring our future student performance, there will continue to be great disparities with other more objective testing systems.

Some Educators Claim Standard's Review Rigged to Rebrand Common Core

This post on the blog Block the Agenda blog contains a letter of resignation by Brenda DeFelice. She is the third member of the Standards Review Committee to resign recently in protest of the management of this committee which was created by an act of the Legislature last legislative session. The Standards Review Committee was set up to revise the controversal Common Core standards. There was also a piece of legislation that greatly modified and limited the PARCC-like testing that is to be done in math and English Language arts to no more than 49.9% of the weight of each such test. The teacher who most recently resigned is from Calcasieu and particularly objected to the heavy handed tactics of the Louisiana Department of Education in providing so called experts to "guide" the work of the Review Committee.

I am not an expert in curriculum standards for math and ELA, but I sure have received numerous emails and complaints from parents and educators who object to the developmental inappropriateness of both the math and ELA standards and the convoluted and nonproductive instruction methods required by these standards.  I learned my reading the old fashoned way without being forced to read boring instructional manuels and without being straightjacketed into "close reading", so I don't get the value of some of these top-down mandates to reading teachers. My wife who was a 4th grade teacher got a lot of kids hooked on the love of reading by reading Charlott's Web to her classes in sort of a serial schedule that teachers have no time to do in today's classrooms.

But I do know a little about tests and measurments, and I can tell you that there was a lot of screwy and highly questionable stuff that happened with our math and ELA testing last Spring.

I wonder how many of the parents of our students know that the average passing score on the PARCC -like tests were set at approximately 30%? Would they think that these passing scores represent a high bar?

One of my concerns is that Louisiana obviously gave a different test than was given by the other PARCC states. At first J.W. said that the test was exactly the same as other states, with the same questions and the same everything, but later he said our questions were really Louisiana designed questions. So how can we compare ourselves to other states if our questions are Louisiana specific? The official statements describing our state tests keep changing to fit the particular situation.

If you read this excellent analysis of our recent PARCC-like tests by Herb Bassett, you will see that the tests we gave did not meet any of the stated design objectives. Our tests are not comparable to NAEP and cannot be compared to other states. Bassett's analysis shows that the Louisiana  PARCC-like test for 8th grade ELA produces almost twice the proficiency rate as does the NAEP test which was given at approximately the same time. Our cut scores are totally different from Ohio and other PARCC states. No one other than the LDOE testing staff and the testing company executives know how our passing scores were set. John White just takes the position that we are supposed to trust his decisions on testing and rating our students and of course on rating our schools and educators based on these tests. No other industry I know allows it's business decisions to be made by a person with no experience or expertise in the enterprise.

White Still Pushing the Same Old Failed Reforms

I have previously characterized Superintendent John White as a one trick pony. I was referring to his efforts to base all education reform on a system of test and punish with all accountability falling on the shoulders of professional educators. But White is actually a two trick pony. He apparently also believes that the right "high performance" charter schools, run by TFA types or non-educator entrepreneurs with high expectations can educate students better than a traditional public school run by real educators. He has stuck with those two tricks even in the face of overwhelming evidence that his simplistic education reforms are not working.

At this last meeting of our present super PAC controlled BESE, White was once again able to ram through approval of two more type two charters that had been previously rejected by the East Baton Rouge school board. Speaking against the override were parents, local school board members, and White's former employee, EBR superintendent Warren Drake. It does not matter that as Drake pointed out, there is nothing innovative in the design of these charters, just more of the same type of blind faith and inexperience that has caused all but one of the 11 takeover schools in the EBR area to fail in recent years.

The image of John White, as the miracle worker from New York with no education credentials is wearing thin in Louisiana.  The problem is that instead of supporting the difficult work of bringing incremental improvement to schools that serve a high proportion of at-risk students, White has continued to push phony ideological solutions that are supposed to produce immediate dramatic improvements in schools.

White has not learned yet that there are no miracle solutions to basic socio-economic obstacles to student performance. Just like another fallen TFA miracle worker for Washington D.C. schools, Michelle Rhee, White has continued to over-promise based on flawed ideology that had no scientific basis. Take a look at the just released PARCC results to Washington D.C. schools. This was also another model of test and punish and portfolio charter schools. The article points out that the only component of data for D.C. that keeps the overall scores from going down the toilet are the scores from two highly selective magnet schools in the district.

White and the reformers have one more trick up their sleeve planned for the new Super Duper PAC controlled BESE sometime early next year. Now they want to ram through the approval of two new charter authorizers that will be able to approve new charters without going to BESE or the local school boards. The idea is to skip the democratic process altogether. The Baton Rouge Area Chamber and New Schools for Baton Rouge have supported all the failed school takeovers in recent years, but now they think they have a real winner. The new high performing charter they plan to push through without any input from the voting public is a darling of charter schools movement. The BASIC charter schools group has announced that it is ready to expand to Baton Rouge as soon as the charter advocates can cut through the bureaucratic red tape. That will be especially easy once New Schools for Baton Rouge is approved as a charter school authorizer. Then there will be no need for messy public appeals to BESE with all those pesky local taxpayers complaining that they never asked for another predatory charter school. Please see this letter in The Lafayette Advertiser by Kathleen Espinoza.