Weeks away from the midterms, education apparatchiks in the nation’s most populous state are ramping up the election mischief by playing politics with what are expected to be dismal results from assessments taken by students last spring. Earlier this month, as reported in EdSource, the California Department of Education (CDE) announced its intent to delay release of test score data from the 2021–22 school year until after November 8. Following media pressure, this week the agency walked back that decision. The original plan would have allowed Governor Gavin Newsom and other elected officials—notably including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who is up for re-election and had the ultimate say on the delay—to duck scrutiny for their role in exacerbating pandemic-related setbacks. CDE’s reversal means that will no longer be the case.
California school districts have already had access to their own test results for over a month, but CDE’s initial refusal to release statewide numbers—a thinly-veiled part of Thurmond’s re-election strategy—and then its melting under the public spotlight, were just the latest in a long line of head-shaking moves. While EdSource should be commended for keeping CDE semi-honest, this wouldn’t be the first time California has engaged in testing tomfoolery. In the spring of 2021, only 24 percent of eligible students took the state exams, after a confusing back-and-forth with the feds that resulted in the assessments being made optional. Regardless of whether nefarious intent was involved this time around, the mixed messages created another round of terrible optics for an agency that has become known for terrible optics.
CDE had attributed its original delay plan to the state board of education and its decision to combine the release of test scores with other metrics (e.g., student attendance, suspension rates, chronic absenteeism) in the California School Dashboard. By releasing all of the performance information simultaneously, the public, according to CDE, would have been less likely to be “misled” by the data. This was risible. There’s no reason why the state cannot publish the test scores separately and as part of the dashboard data, which is what CDE eventually announced it would do—as it has consistently done in the past. Combining everything into the fog machine that is the dashboard would in reality have provided less transparency to the public. This wasn’t a policy argument aimed at illuminating student performance; it was a political argument intended to obscure it.
The political games played with standardized testing in California have been compounded by the federal government, which has spent the last couple of years talking out of both sides of its mouth on ESSA’s assessment and accountability requirements. Even as the Biden administration says states must follow the law, it continues to signal its reluctance to enforce it. That’s the message conveyed in a “Dear Colleague” letter released earlier this month by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. His letter underscores the need to avoid using assessment results “punitively” to chastise teachers on evaluations or to prevent students from graduating or being promoted to the next grade. CDE’s mandarins clearly got the message, taking it a step further to include politicians as another group worthy of being held harmless. The state might have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for some tenacious and intrepid reporting.
The impulse to obfuscate or gainsay the adverse effects of school closures—California was last in the nation with regard to providing in-person instruction—is spreading to other states. Michigan, for instance, tried to put a positive spin on their subpar results. On the other side of the country, little data can be found so far on how students in New York have fared. Like California, the Empire State has shown a lack of regard for annual testing. Both states have chalked up delays in part to lengthy and complicated quality control processes, but the bureaucratic foot-dragging—months after these exams were administered and with students already assigned to new teachers in new classrooms—evinces an unseriousness among state leaders when it comes to helping students get back on track.
The bad behavior on testing is one of several examples of how some state leaders buckled under the pressure of the events of the past two years, particularly in prioritizing the agendas of adults over those of students. This is all the more relevant heading into an election where voters say education is a top issue. Reforms should include reworking data and reporting systems so that they don’t end up mirroring California’s accountability smokescreen, and timing the release of test scores and state report cards far ahead of election campaigns.
On an encouraging note, there’s a safeguard against this sort of nonsense. Findings from the NAEP long-term trend assessment have already provided an alarming indication of how students were affected by poor decisions made during the pandemic. A state-by-state accounting of academic performance is coming at the end of next month (i.e., before the election, for which the National Assessment Governing Board deserves much credit) in the form of “main NAEP.” Unlike the state assessment results gradually rolling out this fall, NAEP provides state-to-state comparisons and will be an especially important check on state testing data—regardless of the Golden State’s measurement histrionics.
Looking past the shenanigans, a huge question continues to center on the long-term prospects for educational equity and excellence in an era when support for state assessments is waning among key constituencies. There has been an enormous amount of table pounding about standardized tests. Love them or hate them, even the most ardent skeptics of testing have inadvertently used this data to support their arguments. It’s one thing to rebuke California’s elected leaders for their ham-fisted failure to hide the ball on testing to avoid embarrassment, but what sort of funny business will they come up with when there’s no longer any ball to hide?
