Data

All summer I get excited about new plans, organizing materials, and buying too many books, bins, shelves, and even mp3 players for my classroom. Summer is a magical time when teaching is all in theory, before the reality of 6 year olds who don't always follow best laid lesson plans sets in. I'll post pics of my, almost ready, classroom later.

Today I woke up to this news story which basically slams my school district's test scores. You know how I feel about tests. Yuck! What a lot of people don't know is the level at which students have to perform in order to pass the TCAP. Read the "Corresponding Quick Score" below. Although it varies from grade to grade and subject to subject, most scores require a score in the upper 80 percentile or even a 90 or 91 in some cases. How many colleges or professional organizations require such a high passing rate?

Small classes, due to rezoning, resulted in my school's scores surpassing the districts by a huge amount. Our 3rd graders math rose from 40% scoring proficient last year to 71.1% scoring proficient this year. That means that 71.1% of our 3rd graders scored at 89 or higher on their test. That is amazing to me! The heartbreak is for those students who scored in the 85-88 range, who would have been proficient under last year's cut scores, but weren't under this year's higher score requirements.

I am interested in any other state's cut score requirements for passing. Maybe 90% is normal across the country. Pass along any info in the comments below. I looked at Indiana's data and saw for 3rd grade math there were a maximum of 735 point with a pass score of 413 (56.19%) and a pass+ score of  513 (69.79%). I may be interpreting that data incorrectly, but if not then Tennessee students are being held to a much higher standard than Indiana students.

Testing sucks. There is no other way to describe it.