Federally Funded Study: Common Core Sunk U.S. Kids’ Test Scores
Over at the Federalist, Joy Pullmann writes about how, despite unforgettable promises we heard at the time Common Core State Standards were adopted, a federally funded study now shows Common Core sunk U.S. kids’ test scores.
Who can forget claims made about Common Core such as:
“The standards are designed to build upon the most advanced current thinking about preparing all students for success in college, career, and life.”
“Standards from top-performing countries played a significant role in the development of the math and English language arts/literacy standards.”
“The mathematical progressions in the Common Core State Standards are coherent and based on evidence.”
“The standards have made careful use of a large and growing body of evidence.”
But, now, nearly a decade later, the chickens are coming home to roost.
For example, Pullmann writes that “in every subject studied students would have been better off if states had not adopted Common Core.” Her article includes results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments of fourth and eighth grade reading and math from the early 1990’s to the present. All four graphs show a notable decline in performance after most states implemented Common Core in the 2012 to 2015 time frame.
Kentucky is no exception. The Bluegrass State was the first state to implement Common Core aligned testing (the KPREP tests) starting in the spring of 2012. Here is how the Common Core era worked out for the Bluegrass State in Grade 8 math.
As you can see, just as is true across the nation, the beginning year of Common Core aligned testing in Kentucky is associated with the start of a drop in NAEP scores.
And, here is how Kentucky performed over the years for Grade 8 NAEP Reading.
The performance here after Common Core aligned testing started is similar.
Also note how performance in NAEP Grade 8 reading over time in Kentucky has been irregular and has not improved nearly as much as the case for math. However, the state’s reading performance definitely started sagging after Common Core came along.
So much for the reliability of education research and the fad education ideas that get pushed with such research.
By the way, Kentucky now claims it no longer uses the Common Core, but the current standards share a lot of similarities to the Common Core. Hopefully, we well get new NAEP results late this calendar year and we’ll know more about whether there really has been much of a shift away from the Common Core, or at least from the falling academic performance that Common Core gave Kentucky.