When Grades and Test Scores Don’t Add Up, Who Can Parents Trust?
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In June, my daughter successfully completed her first year at a public high school in New York City. She achieved excellent results, receiving A grades in all her subjects. Additionally, she sat for state Regents exams in two of her courses. To graduate from a New York state public school, students must pass a minimum of five out of the 11 available Regents exams. These exams include English, math, science, social studies, and an optional fifth subject.
Fortunately, my daughter passed both of her Regents exams. The passing score is 65, and the results are curved in such a way that sometimes, answering only one-third of the questions correctly is sufficient to pass. A score of 85 or higher is considered "mastery," which is required for admission to some colleges in New York City and the state. However, my daughter, despite her straight-A performance, achieved the "mastery" designation in only one of her Regents exams. (She has given me permission to share this information.)
My daughter is not alone in this disparity between her grades and test scores. Many students experience the same disconnect, excelling academically according to their teachers but struggling to demonstrate full mastery of the material in their test scores.
Throughout the 21st century, a significant number of New York City students have advanced to the next grade level despite failing their state exams. This phenomenon was observed as early as 1999 and continued in 2015, with certain schools reporting 92% of students earning A and B grades but not a single student achieving proficiency in the state tests. The trend persisted in 2019, the final year before the Regents exams were canceled for two years due to the pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, while the exams were suspended, high school graduation rates in New York state notably increased. For instance, in Buffalo, the graduation rate was 65% in 2019. By 2020, it had risen to 76%, and in 2021, it reached 79%.
Although more students are earning their high school diplomas, the question remains: are they adequately prepared for college or their chosen career paths?
This is not a new question, and it extends well beyond New York and its Regents exams.
In his 2018 book, "How Schools Work: An Inside Account of Failure and Success From One of the Nation’s Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education," Arne Duncan, former Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama, sheds light on this issue with an anecdote from his time in Chicago.
Duncan shares a story about Calvin Williams, an academically successful high school senior with a B average who could only read and write at a second- or third-grade level. The most concerning aspect was that Calvin was unaware of his deficiencies. Even worse, his school and teachers were also oblivious to how far behind he was. They perceived Calvin as an actual B student.
These falsehoods are among the educational system’s most detrimental aspects, creating illusions for parents regarding their children’s learning progress.
According to statistics, 68% of community college students and 40% of students at public four-year colleges need to take at least one high school-level class because they are inadequately prepared for the rigors of college coursework.
Even students who graduate with honors or achieve GPAs above 4.0 often find themselves unprepared due to the system’s misleading representations. The reality is that students who believe they are performing well in middle school are often ill-prepared for the challenges of high school.
As a parent, I have personally witnessed this issue as my daughter is the third child of mine to navigate the public school system. I have attended conferences where teachers express their inability to cover all the material required for state exams, Regents, and Advanced Placement tests.
Furthermore, when I interviewed students from some of the city’s most prestigious high schools about the quality of their preparation, their responses included instances such as:
– The teacher explicitly told us that we would not learn everything we needed solely through class notes and assigned readings.
– In math classes, we were taught only the initial part of a problem in the classroom and had to teach ourselves the rest at home.
– Social studies assessments included more material that was covered outside of the classroom than within it. There were numerous occasions where we had to self-teach.
In conclusion, there is a clear issue within the education system regarding the misalignment between grades and actual mastery of subjects. This problem exists beyond New York and its Regents exams and requires attention in order to ensure students are adequately prepared for their futures.
The underlying question here, whether we’re discussing New York City, New York State, Chicago, or the entire United States – where only 37% of students are deemed prepared for college-level math and reading, as per a 2016 study – is who should we trust when it comes to assessing our children’s progress. Should it be the classroom teachers who argue that they have the best understanding of the students and that their day-to-day observations outweigh any once-a-year examination? Or should it be a standardized test given to all students of the same grade to evaluate their performance in comparison to one another and state standards?
Personally, I tend to favor the latter. That’s why, when choosing high schools for my children, I didn’t pay much attention to graduation rates. Instead, I focused on the college-readiness statistics. This seemed less subjective and more reliable.
If it is indeed the case that there’s insufficient time to cover all the topics assessed in state assessments, Regents, or AP exams within an academic year, then either the tests should be revised to align better with the curriculum, or the curriculum should be reconsidered to align better with the assessments.
While it may be reasonable for a student to receive a grade of 92 in class and, let’s say, an 85 on a standardized test – considering in-class work can encompass participation, extra credit, hands-on projects, etc. – it should raise concerns when a student earns a report card grade of 95 but achieves such a low score on a Regents exam that they are unable to graduate.
More than a decade ago, Duncan expressed his worry about the falsehoods that families were being told regarding their children’s academic performance. As I look at my daughter’s Regents scores, I fear that my family has become one of those who were misled. I am even more concerned for those families who are unaware that they should be anxious. They have been told that standardized tests hold no significance, and perhaps it would be best to opt out entirely.
However, these scores serve as a second opinion of sorts. They either validate the teacher’s perception of your child or, at the very least, should prompt parents to investigate further. Teachers observe our children, but we, as parents, should also be observant of the teachers. And standardized tests are just one of the tools we have at our disposal.
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