New York to end Regents test 'fishy' scoring

Responding to a suspicious spike in the number of students barely passing high school Regents exams, New York State education officials have ordered schools to end the longstanding but controversial practice of rescoring tests that fall just below the passing grade.

I previously posted about "something fishy" going on with New York Regents scores, and now the state has finally decided to end this questionable practice.

In recent years, statistics show, an unusually large number of students have obtained exactly the minimum score needed to pass the exams, which are required for graduation and are often graded by students’ own teachers.

For more than a decade, state regulations required schools to reread science and math Regents exams with scores within five points of the passing grade, which has shifted from 55 to 65 over those years. The purpose was to ensure that no student would fail to graduate because of a scoring mistake.

But in practice, schools began to reread barely failing exams in every subject, according to several investigations and anecdotal reports. And at times, the process shifted from a quality review to an all-out effort to find points to help students graduate. Five Regents exams — one each in science, math and English and two in social studies — are required for graduation.

State officials have acknowledged unusual scoring patterns, and earlier this month ruled that high schools could not rescore any “open-ended” questions, ones with written or essay answers, in which grading is more subjective. In a message to principals this week, the New York City Department of Education made it clear that rescoring multiple-choice questions was also prohibited.

The order is part of a wider effort by the city and the state to shore up the accuracy of the Regents and other standardized tests as they ask them to carry an ever-growing weight in a data-driven accountability system for schools. In the next several years, teachers will begin to be judged in part on how well students do on the Regents. They are already an important factor in other high-stakes decisions, including annual A-to-F city school report card grades, whether schools are closed for poor performance, and whether principals are praised or fired. 

Shouldn't the next thing be for New York to end the practice of teachers scoring their own tests, the ones that will be used to judge their performance?

ADDED:  Ms. Eyre writes:

I'm pretty sure that every single teacher who has ever scored a Regents exam has been asked to scrub at least once.

Source:  State Ends a Practice of Rescoring Regents Tests - NYT

"Something fishy" about New York State Regents scoring

There is "something fishy" going on with New York Regents scores.  A statistical analysis showed that an unexpected and significantly high number of students scored exactly 65%, which is the lowest passing score for the test.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of high-school Regents test scores shows that a disproportionate percentage of New York City students barely got the passing score they needed to receive a diploma in the past two years, while very few received scores just below passing.
For the 2009 English Regents exams, for instance, students were more than five times as likely to get a 65—the minimum passing grade—than they were to score one point below. In the U.S. History and Government Regents, students were 14 times more likely to get a 65 than one point lower. 

 

"There's no question that there's something fishy going on," said Jonah Rockoff, a professor at Columbia University's business school who frequently analyzes schools-related data sets.
In New York state, high-school teachers score their own students' tests—which differs from tests in most other states, as well as New York's own third- through eighth-grade tests. Mr. Rockoff, who reviewed the Regents data, said, "It looks like teachers are pushing kids over the edge. They are very reluctant to fail a kid who needs just one or two points to pass."

School officials defend the results, explaining that they follow the state's policy of regrading tests where the student barely fails.

Teachers refer to the practice of lifting test scores as "scrubbing." After teachers grade tests—many times their own students or those of their colleagues—they set aside tests in which the students just missed passing. Teachers say that is generally from 60 to 64, but can go as low as 57. The teachers then ask the original scorer to take another look at the test to see if an argument could be made for giving the student an extra point or more.

This skewed score distribution pattern has been observed statewide in tests going back to 2000.  The state is moving towards an online system of testing and scoring, with grading assigned randomly to teachers across the state.

I have been skeptical of state test results since I first became familiar with them back when my own children started taking them.

Students' Regents Test Scores Bulge at 65 - WSJ

Revamped English Regents test is easier?

The 2011 New York English Regents exam that students took in January was downsized.

Kids who hate to write must love the new English Regents test.
For the first time in 12 years, New York high-school students last week took a new English exam, which was slashed from two days to one, six hours to three -- and four essays to one.
Some students and teachers think the abbreviated version is a breeze next to the old one.
"It's a lot easier -- there's only one essay!" a teen told one teacher who proctored the exam.
The test downsizing comes on the heels of tougher statewide math and English tests for grades 3 through 8 -- a crackdown Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch called "setting the bar higher."

But a veteran English teacher called the slimmer Regents exam "a joke."
"This is not raising the bar. It's dumbing it down," she said. "I think it's easier to pass now. They're not going to make as many mistakes."...
State Education Commissioner David Steiner insists the new exam, when scored, will be "just as rigorous" as the one it replaced, which was launched in 1999 to raise graduation standards.
The state says it trimmed the only Regents test that took two days because school districts, including New York City's, griped it was a logistical "hardship." Three times, they said, bad weather forced kids who missed the second day to finish months later on the next testing date.
The new test has 25 multiple-choice questions, one less. It also replaces three essays, including ones that focused on nonfiction, with two short written answers requiring "a well-developed paragraph."
Tuesday's essay question asked pupils to relate two works of literature they have read to a quote by Helen Keller: "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
Experts say test length matters -- it usually boosts reliability.

One English teacher thinks the "Grade 8 ELA Exam is harder" than the revamped Regents.

No English teacher with whom I've spoken thinks that this new test is in any way an improvement towards making the tests more rigorous and demanding to encourage kids to reach higher standards. It's hard not to see the current test as pretty dumbed-down.

But the final scores will depend on how the "testing gnomes" in Albany "norm it and curve it"

I'm not sure when results will be available, but I believe it will be at the end of the school year.