The nitty-gritty of how Regents’ actions affect school districts

On Board Online • February 24, 2014

By  Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

Wondering how the Regents’ adjustments regarding Common Core State Standards will affect your school district? Here are questions and answers.

Q: The Regents now are saying that students will not have to meet the new Common Core standards until 2022. What should we do differently?
A: School districts still are expected to train teachers, develop curriculum and administer state tests aligned with the Common Core standards. Instruction and testing designed to measure progress toward meeting the new standards is expected to move forward without any pause or delay. Until 2022, however, scores of 65 on math and English Regents exams aligned with the new standards still will be considered passing, and students will be able to graduate with those scores. Students in the class of 2022 will be the first required to demonstrate proficiency on the Common Core standards with higher scores  of 75 on the English Language Arts (ELA) Regents exam and 80 on one math Regents exam. State education officials describe those higher scores as thresholds for demonstrating “college and career readiness.”

Q: I’ve heard there will be more flexibility for students taking the Geometry Regents exam and that school boards will need to decide what options to offer locally. What’s the deal with that?
A: Local school districts will have the option next year, and only next year, of allowing students to take two versions of the Geometry Regents exam – one based on the old standards and one based on the new Common Core standards. Students could then choose the higher score for their transcripts and pass either test to meet the math requirement for graduation. “Next year” means the 2015-16 school year, and the option applies to the Geometry Regents exams given in June and August 2015 and January 2016. This local flexibility option is virtually the same as one offered this school year for students taking Regents exams in English Language Arts and Algebra I.

Q: Will we be affected by new limits on local testing connected with teacher evaluations?
A: Possibly, if you have selected separate standardized tests as local measures.
According to the Regents, APPR agreements will have to be accompanied by assurances that any locally chosen standardized tests consume no more than 1 percent of total instructional time in a classroom or program.

Q: There are also new limits on standardized testing of the youngest students. Are there things our school district will have to change or stop?
A: It depends on whether the local 20-point part of your teacher evaluation (APPR) agreement uses standardized student tests to help measure the effectiveness of kindergarten, first-or second-grade teachers. The state doesn’t use traditional standardized tests of children that young to calculate its 20-point student growth portion of APPR, but the State Education Department did include some standardized tests on its list of approved K-2 assessments that could be used as the local measure. Those standardized tests no longer will be included on that list. However, existing APPR plans remain in effect. If the district and union agree to change the plan, expedited approval is available. Other evaluation options include performance-based assessments, which allow students to demonstrate what they know through an activity or task. Districts also can use state assessment results in a different way or use school-wide measures; see below.

Q: Will our district have greater flexibility or authority to reduce testing related to the APPR teacher evaluations?
A: Yes. Districts will be allowed to use already-available information about student learning, such as school-wide results on state math and ELA tests, to help evaluate the effectiveness of social studies teachers for grades 6-8 and science teachers for grades 7 and 8. That should reduce the need for separate stand-alone social studies and science tests. The reasoning behind using school-wide measures is the idea that all educators in a school are part of an instructional team and they all contribute to student success on math and ELA tests.

Q: Did the Regents add any privacy protections for student data or act to extricate New York from its contract with inBloom to build the statewide EngageNY student data portal?
A: None of the Regents’ formal resolutions dealt specifically with inBloom. However, the Regents, citing concerns over data security expressed by parents and state lawmakers, said SED will delay a launch of the EngageNY data portal and will hold off on uploading personally identifiable student data to inBloom. In addition,  Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. is among school chiefs from 34 states who in January affirmed there are no plans to share personally identifiable student information with the federal government.

Q: Can parents now “opt out” of testing for their children?
A: None of the Regents’ actions encourage or enable that.

Q: What is changing for students with disabilities?
A: The Regents will move forward with a request for a federal Department of Education waiver that would permit the state to test more students with severe disabilities on their “instructional level” rather than their age. This would apply only to some students who are not already eligible for alternative assessments because of extremely severe disabilities. Also, the State Education Department will provide new guidelines for local Committees on Special Education to help ensure that individualized education programs (IEPs) address particular difficulties a student may have meeting the new Common Core standards. The department plans to produce more curriculum resources for teachers of students with disabilities and more information and guidance for parents of those students.

Q: What do the Regents plan to do about the surge in students whose scores on the grades 3-8 math and ELA tests last year showed that they were below a level deemed proficient in the new learning standards?
A: The Regents intend to try to reduce the stigma attached to a Level 2 score on the exams with some clarifications and changes in its own terminology. While Level 3 is considered proficient, and Level 1 is considered insufficient, a Level 2 score should not be viewed as failing, the Regents said. Rather, it should be viewed as a level of proficiency that shows a student is on track for meeting the old standards but will likely need additional support to meet the new standards.