writeAshley.jpg
Oregon students had to do a lot of writing on the new Common Core tests. And they performed far better than expected. In this 2013 photo, Ashley Wilson, then a senior at Oregon City High, starts a draft of a persuasive essay.
(Betsy Hammond / The Oregonian / 2013)
Oregon students performed far better than expected on the rigorous Common Core tests they took for the first time this spring, especially in reading and writing, preliminary results show.
But high school juniors bombed in math.
State officials had projected that only about 35 percent of Oregon students would conquer the tough Smarter Balanced tests on their first try. But teachers and students smashed those expectations, Oregon Department of Education officials said.
About 55 percent of students have met the nationwide standard in reading and writing and about 45 percent have met the nationwide standard in math, preliminary scores show. About 95 percent of the tests have been graded.
The state released the scores Thursday in response to a June public records request from The Oregonian/OregonLive.
High school math was the one bleak spot. Only 31 percent of juniors have met the nationwide proficiency standard, worse than the low 33 percent that state officials had projected.
State officials cautioned that all the results are incomplete and almost certainly will be lower once the final 5 percent of tests are graded.
But it is clear that reading and writing scores will be substantially higher than expected. A majority of Oregon's middle and high school students showed the level of reading and writing skills that test makers said indicates they are on track for college.
Toya Fick, executive director of Stand for Children Oregon, which supports giving the tests and using the results to spur improvement, hailed the strong scores. "When we raise the bar and do our part to help our children get there, they will rise to the challenge," she said.
But she said the "underwhelming" high school math scores are a cause for concern.
"Oregon sends far too many high school graduates off to college unprepared. We force our students to spend precious time and money in college on instruction we should have given them in high school," Fick said. "Now that we have better information on how students are doing, we can work to prevent that from happening."
Hanna Vaandering, president of the Oregon Education Association, which opposed giving Smarter Balanced tests this year, cautioned that test scores don't give a full picture of student learning.
"It's great to have positive feedback. We want nothing more than for our students to be successful," Vaandering said. "But as professionals we know this assessment is one measure, one tool."
In 2010, Oregon adopted the Common Core State Standards. Compared with Oregon's own standards in reading and math, they call for students to read harder material, write more, think analytically and master many math concepts a year or two earlier.
But Oregon did not switch to the Smarter Balanced tests, which measure proficiency against those standards, until this spring. Oregon schools chief Rob Saxton, who stepped down from that job Tuesday, had warned Oregonians to brace for relatively few students to master the hard new tests in their first year.
Saxton and others were delighted to see that students exceeded expectations, especially in reading and writing.
Crystal Greene, communications director for the department, said in a statement, "We know that educators across the state have been working incredibly hard to implement these new higher standards. These preliminary results show that both educators and students are rising to the challenge."
It is not surprising that Oregon students scored at least somewhat better than projected, because the projections were largely based on how a sample of Oregon students scored during large-scale field test of the Smarter Balanced test in spring 2014.
At that point, most schools had taught Common Core-style lessons for only a year or two and most teachers had heard little about the test's format. In addition, students knew the field test scores would not count for them or their schools, so they may not have tried their hardest.
When students took the Smarter Balanced test for real in spring 2015, students had been taught with a Common Core approach for an additional year, teachers were more familiar with test and schools made a bigger deal out of doing one's best.
Still, the margins by which middle and high school students outperformed projections in reading and writing were eye-popping.
Smarter Balanced tests were given in 18 states this year, and officials from those states together determined how high students would have to score to be rated on track for college and careers.
So far, only Idaho has released its preliminary results. (11 a.m. update: Now Washington has too. Read about that here.)
Oregon students outperformed Idaho students in math at most grade levels and definitively in middle school. Oregon students far outperformed Idaho's in reading and writing.
For individual students and their teachers and parents, Greene said, "these tests provide important feedback... about where students are on their path to college and career readiness, allowing learning gaps to be identified and addressed early so that students can graduate better prepared for their next steps."
"It is not accurate to talk about these results in a pass/fail manner," because there are no stakes attached to reaching a certain score, Greene said. A student's Smarter Balanced score does not affect promotion to the next grade, report card grades or whether a student gets a diploma.
This year, Smarter Balanced scores also do not affect teachers' performance evaluation or schools' performance ratings. That likely will change in 2016 but depends on whether, and if so how, Congress reauthorizes the No Child Left Behind law.
The 2015 scores were higher than expected, but they also point out that there is a lot of work to be done, Greene said. About 55 percent of Oregon students aren't on track to be ready for college math and about 40 percent or more need to become better writers to succeed in college or a good-paying job, she said.
"It will take time to reach this new higher bar. This transition will require persistence and patience from our students and a continued focus on... high-quality instruction from our educators," Greene said.
-- Betsy Hammond
betsyhammond@oregonian.com