Along with scores, state will release test items next week

Spreadsheets and official statements aren’t the only information that will get released next week when New York education officials announce the results of this year’s state tests.

State officials announced today that they’ll also be releasing a “significant number” of questions from the new Common Core-aligned tests that students took in April. Schools will have access to the results on Monday, and scores will be released to the public on Wednesday.

The decision to release tests to the public is a departure from the State Education Department’s history of keeping the tests secure, as it has done for the past several years. Officials have argued that not releasing test items makes future tests less predictable and keeps down costs, since new tests don’t need to be designed each year.

But this year’s tests, the first that were aligned to more challenging learning standards know as the Common Core, were clearly an exception. Big drops in proficiency rates are expected, with various estimates ranging from 10 points in math to nearly 30 points in English.

State tests have been under fire since last year’s tests were shown to be riddled with errors. One multiple choice question that was accompanied with a nonsensical reading passage about a pineapple attracted widespread ridicule.

The state had greater oversight over the tests’ design this year, but critics still called for public disclosure of test items. Aaron Pallas, a researcher at Teachers College Columbia University, argued on GothamSchools in April that keeping the test items private hurt the public’s ability to debate education:

High-stakes tests administered by governmental agencies call for a heightened sense of procedural fairness, including the ability to interrogate the tests and how they were constructed, and what counts as a correct response. The point is not so much that bad test items get discarded — although that may be appropriate from time to time — as much as it is that the procedures are subject to scrutiny by those they affect. 

In addition to releasing test questions, the state will also be releasing “other instructionally relevant materials for educators and parents,” Assistant Commissioner Ken Wagner wrote in an email to school district leaders this afternoon.

Preparation for the drop in test scores has been underway for months. The city launched an advertising campaign to raise awareness about the coming catapult and tweaked its grade promotion policy in anticipation of the influx of students who are likely to receive “not proficient” scores. The state has also been stressing that school districts, most of which are implementing new teacher evaluations that are linked to the high-stakes scores, use the results “judiciously” when making decisions about employment.

“In light of the new baseline in student scores set with the 2012-13 state tests, it is even more important for school district officials to consider all aspects of a teacher’s or principal’s evaluation when making employment decisions using the 2012-13 composite evaluations,” Commissioner John King wrote in a memo to district officials and school administrators today.

The tests will surely be used for another high-stakes measure: judging Mayor Bloomberg’s education record. Already, the city teachers union sent reporters a lengthy backgrounder painting the coming drops as a challenge to the mayor’s claims of improving the city’s schools.

City Hall fired back with a memo of its own. “It is appalling that [union president Michael] Mulgrew has chosen to politicize the most important national educational advancement in a generation,” wrote spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua. “The Common Core standards have been adopted by 46 states. Teachers across New York have spent thousands of hours training and preparing to provide stronger instruction to help our students meet this challenge.  They did amazing work last year under very tough circumstances and they have a lot of tough work ahead, as next week’s scores will show.”

King’s memo to districts is below:

State Education Department Memo Re Scores Release