By Marc Lanser
The results of the 2015 NECAP science test have just been released with no surprises, just more of the same high percentage of failures in Harwood Union High School. This year, 64 percent of HUHS students were graded as “below proficient” (i.e., failed). This follows the below proficient grades of 73, 71, 59 and 64 percent in the years 2011 to 2014. From a statistical point of view, the current 64 percent below proficient grade may not represent any real change from these previous years. One could perhaps say that 2011 was the worst performance (73 percent below proficient) and that results were a little better thereafter. Regardless, most objective reviewers would agree that these results were and remain dismal and evidence of the poor knowledge base of our students in science at the high school level.
As we see from this year’s results as well as previous years, NECAP performance in science is OK in elementary school, declines quickly in middle school (62, 69, 55, 64 and 62 percent below proficient in years 2011 to 2015) and reaches a nadir in high school. This marked decline in performance is not, however, isolated to science. In math, approximately 25 percent of students are graded below proficient in eighth grade during these years with little or no trend, which then reaches 60 percent below proficient in 11th grade, with, again, little change over these years. In math, the Smarter Balanced Assessment test replaced the NECAP in 2014, so the 2015 SBA results cannot be directly compared to the NECAP for the purposes of trend analysis. However, the failure rate is even higher on the new math SBA test, with 55 percent of eighth-graders scoring below proficient and a whopping 74 percent below proficient in 11th grade.
As reported in The Valley Reporter (VR) last week, Rebecca Holcombe, Vermont secretary of education, suggested that this “lack of improvement” (now that’s a euphemism!) in science scores in the past few years may be due to “diminished classroom time spent on science because of the federal emphasis on English, language arts and math within the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. My reaction when I read that statement was that if the secretary of education for the state of Vermont doesn’t even know that testing in science was mandated by NCLB eight years ago beginning in 2007, she should resign. If, as she says, students were more focused on math and language arts, why do the math results follow the same trend as science with the same poor results and the same middle school-high school performance gap that goes from bad to worse? When will the individuals responsible for education in this state take their heads out of the sand and acknowledge the pitiful state of science and math education in all of Vermont in grades K-12 (HUHS is actually better than the Vermont average)? Admitting that there is a problem is the first step toward solving it, something that the secretary is evidently unable or unwilling to do. As I’ve said numerous times in previous letters to The VR, it is only thanks to President Bush’s NCLB and its mandated testing and to a lesser extent to President Obama’s Race to the Top (RTTT) that we finally have objective assessments of student performance by which to hold the educational establishment accountable for students’ academic performance. These tests continue to shine a harsh light on the persistent dismal knowledge level of our students in both science and math.
Lanser lives in Fayston.
