As U.S. students lag, last Common Core hurdle crossed in Mich.

By CHAD SELWESKI

Chad.selweski@macombdaily.com; @cbsnewsman

Just hours after Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said this week that new international test results of high school students exposed “educational stagnation” in the United States, a Macomb County lawmaker declared that the fight over new testing standards in Michigan is over.

As the global student assessments showed U.S. 15-year-olds lagging further behind many of their counterparts across the globe, the Michigan Department of Education concluded that the long-anticipated new standardized testing methods tied to the controversial Common Core standards are the “only viable option” for the state.

Common Core attempts to move student testing away from memorization and multiple-choice answers toward problem-solving skills, critical thinking and written answers – the method that has become common on academic tests across the globe.

The MDE report ordered by the Legislature drew the conclusions that state Rep. Jeff Farrington, a Utica Republican, had feared. The department said that, after three years of study, the state should replace the tests conducted under the Michigan Education Assessment Program, or MEAP, with the testing devised by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which aligns with Common Core’s uniform national standards.

Farrington

“The reason I voted against Common Core is not because of the rhetoric but because experts I’ve talked to said this test is not ready,” Farrington said. “There are … a lot of games being played by the MDE. This whole debate was a total waste of time.”

Critics say Common Core establishes a federally-controlled, “cookie cutter” method to K-12 educational standards and expectations. Supporters point out that the new approach toward schooling was developed by the bipartisan National Governors Association and a national group of educators, not by Washington.

Earlier this year, the Republican-led Legislature in Lansing engaged in a protracted attempt to remove Michigan from the Common Core consortium, which comprises 45 states. In time, the GOP-controlled House shifted and eventually voted in September by an 85-21 vote to allow spending on Common Core standards to resume. Three of the 21 Republicans in opposition were from Macomb County: Farrington; Ken Goike of Ray Township; and Anthony Forlini of Harrison Township. The GOP Senate followed suit and approved the new system.

But the Republican lawmakers balked at funding the companion Smarter Balanced exams. They instead asked for an MDE report on testing options, which was released Monday.

"At the time that these contracts were being prepared, Smarter Balanced was the only viable option available to the state, and as this report demonstrates, it remains the only viable option that can satisfy all of the multiple needs for test security, student data privacy, a Michigan governance role, Michigan educator involvement, minimizing local burdens, cost effectiveness, Michigan access to all data to allow for verification, and so on," the report said.

Farrington and others who question the report’s conclusions dispute the assertion that school districts without sufficient computer technology, including some in Macomb County, will be given an equivalent pencil-and-paper version of the exam.

But, Farrington said, the MDE can now proceed without any roadblocks from the Legislature and the $20 million to pay for the new testing can be secured within the department budget regardless of any further resistance from the House and Senate.

The timing was a coincidence but on Tuesday morning the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which collects test results for 15-year-olds from 65 countries, found U.S. students lagging. The newest rankings, compiled from 2012 tests, show that American students ranked below average in math, science and reading among the world's most-developed countries.

In mathematics, 29 nations and other jurisdictions outperformed the United States by a statistically significant margin, up from 23 three years ago, the report said. In science, 22 education systems scored above the U.S. average, up from 18 in 2009.

And in reading, 19 other countries or provinces scored higher than U.S. students, a jump from nine in 2009, when the last assessment was performed.

The top overall scores came from the Chinese provinces of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macao, and the nations of Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. The small nations that outpaced the U.S. included Lichtenstein, Estonia and Lithuania.

Spending per student was not a factor. Nor were poverty levels. A poor nation such as Vietnam  outscored the U.S. significantly in math and science.

In math, less than 9 percent of U.S. students scored in the advanced category, compared to 55 percent of students in Shanghai, 40 percent in Singapore and more than 16 percent in Canada. In science, just 7 percent of American kids reached the top two levels of performance, compared with 27 percent in Shanghai and 17 percent in Finland. The U.S. also had significantly higher proportions of teens scoring at the lowest levels than most of its international rivals.