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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

[b]A dissection of Common Core math test questions leaves educator ‘appalled’[/b]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/30/a-dissection-of-common-core-math-test-questions-leaves-educator-appalled/

Using the sample of released items in the New York Common Core tests, I recently spent some time looking over the eighth-grade math results and items to see what was to be learned – and I came away appalled at what I found.

Readers will recall that the whole point of the standards is that they be embedded in complex problems that require both content and practice standards. But what were the hardest questions on the 8th grade test? Picayune, isolated, and needlessly complex calculations of numbers using scientific notation. And in one case, an item is patently invalid in its convoluted use of the English language to set up the prompt, as we shall see.

As I have long written, there is a sorry record in mass testing of sacrificing validity for reliability. This test seems like a prime example. Score what is easy to score, regardless of the intent of the Common Core Standards. [b]There are 28 eighth-grade math standards. Why do such arguably less important standards have at least five items related to them? (Who decided which standards were most important? Who decided to test the standards in complete isolation from one another simply because that is psychometrically cleaner?)
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That piece of writing is about the tests in New York, which were New York's own tests. It's not relevant to the PARCC tests, the Smarter Balanced tests, or any of the individual state tests other than New York's.

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