Gordon Chan: Students still have no reason to try on new tests

Re “Real test of Common Core about to begin” (Opinions, Jan. 18): The Common Core program is designed to jump California students ahead of Asian and European students in language and math in a single bound. The Bee editors support this curriculum and Smarter Balanced testing without really thinking through the consequences of the testing part.

Students will have no incentive to really do well on the test. Since we do not, and cannot by law, hold students accountable for taking the test to the best of their abilities, there is no reason to take The Common Core test seriously. To many students, the test is meaningless; just something else they have to do. Results of the test may go on their transcripts but do not affect their college or university entrance.

So, the politicians and policymakers will evaluate and judge the effectiveness of schools by scores generated by students who have no stake in the test because there are no consequences for randomly marking answers or skipping questions. We will spend millions to implement a national program based on unreliable test scores.

It seems as if there is a conspiracy by politicians and educational policymakers to make public schools and teachers appear incompetent.

This story was originally published January 21, 2015 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Gordon Chan: Students still have no reason to try on new tests."