We fully expected the scores to be lower when the state Education Department released the results for the state's new Common Core assessments last week. We have purposely shifted the assessments so that they test for knowledge of the Common Core learning standards in English language arts and math. The assessments administered to students this year are a new benchmark, and the bar has been set higher. It follows that results are lower. What we choose to do in response to these results is of great consequence.
We should use the results to educate parents and students about the Common Core standards, explaining how schools and the nature of instruction should be changing. This will foster understanding of new expectations and their importance for the future of our children, the economy and our representative democracy.
Effective use of the test results can build trust with teachers and principals. Employing them for developmental purposes will go a long way in effective implementation of Common Core standards; better alignment of assessments with the standards; improvement in teaching and leadership strategies and practices; and better utilization of data driven decision-making by parents, students, teachers, principals and policy-makers.
This week, the state released representative test questions and other resources that will enable schools to sharpen data analysis, target professional development to specific areas for improvement and provide specific examples to parents around the learning expectations of the Common Core. Additionally, these materials will help build confidence in the credibility of the new assessment system.
The past school year was a busy one for students, teachers and building principals who have worked assiduously to implement Common Core learning standards. Families have done their part by rejecting misguided test boycotts and getting children to school to take the assessments.
Critics have and will argue that aspects of the Annual Professional Performance Review can be quite complex. And we are shifting assessments to the Common Core while we are gradually implementing shifts in instruction. Yes, transformation of our mature and complex public education system will take time, but let's not lose sight of the goal — a Regents diploma that actually means a recipient is ready for college, career and citizenship. That is the promise of the Common Core.
The French philosopher Voltaire once observed "The perfect is the enemy of the good." What we've started isn't perfect — but it is very good.
It is now incumbent upon educational leaders at the state, regional and local levels as well as our many gifted teacher leaders to use this year's test results not to lay blame or be defensive but to mobilize systemic learning and manifest genuine openness to needed improvements. Such leadership will help us discover better approaches to teacher and leader development, educating our students and making certain that they leave high school truly prepared.
Our effort to transform public education hangs in the balance. The choices we make in the wake of what are sure to be lower test results will influence whether it is sustained.
We can choose to be critical, defensive and demagogic or we can choose to learn and to lead.