The HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” took on the issue of standardized tests on Sunday, criticizing the pressure it creates for students, teachers and administrators.

Oliver made no secret of where he stood, pointing out that some test booklets include instructions on what a teacher should do if an anxious student vomits on the booklet.

“And something is wrong with our system when we just assume a certain number of kids will vomit. Tests are supposed to be assessments of skills, not a rap battle on 8 Mile Road,” Oliver said.

The segment covers many facets of the issue, including tying the results to teacher evaluations, the growing number of students boycotting the tests, the history of No Child Left Behind and the sometimes ridiculous and surreal scenes the testing culture creates, like pep rallies with a dancing monkey meant to pump kids up for the test.

Oliver also focused on the profits reaped by large companies like Pearson that create the tests, and a confusing, bizarre test question about a talking pineapple.

“A talking pineapple? At the risk of sounding like a Dreamworks executive talking to a CGI animator, ‘Tell me more about this talking pineapple,'” Oliver said.

The pineapple test question was among 30 produced by Pearson that have now been declared invalid in New York. One student told a local news station the question “was stupid and absurd.”

Oliver said he and his staff looked up the test question and couldn’t work out the answer either.

“That pineapple item doesn’t remotely work as a test question. It barely works as a Doors lyric,” Oliver said.

Anyone who follows LA Unified closely is familiar with the concept of Pearson — one of the largest producers of educational materials — falling short of expectations. The district recently announced its intention to seek a full refund on millions of dollars of iPads that were purchased pre-loaded with Pearson software it found to be unusable.

No matter where you stand on the issue, the video (above) is well worth a look.

(Warning: it does include some crass humor and bleeped swear words.)

Previous posts: California Could Face Year With No Meaningful Testing Data, Post Deasy: ‘One of the Biggest Adjustments Ever’

But the greater uncertainty could lie ahead.

The plan is for all students to be tested on a new curriculum — the Common Core State Standards — in 2015. Those tests will be administered on computers. But what about 2014? The State Assembly hasn’t quite made a decision on that front, but 2014 could be a lost year in terms of meaningful testing data.

Assembly Bill 484, which has been approved by the Assembly and is currently being debated in a state Senate committee, would eliminate all of the California Standardized Tests that high school students would have taken over the 2013-2014 academic year — tests in subjects like history, algebra, chemistry and physics. Some students will take the new Common Core tests, and students in grades 3 through 8 would still take the CSTs for Title 1 purposes.

“The tests will be irrelevant,” said John Mockler, an education consultant who served briefly as interim California Education Secretary and was one of the architects of Proposition 30. “Some kids are going to take these new Common Core tests, some kids are going to take the old STAR test. Either one of those or both will be invalid, because they test different things. They can’t be used for accountability purposes.”

If AB 484 doesn’t pass, most students would take the CSTs for one final year.

Either way, California testing will face, in 2015, the same sort of rocky results that New York is facing this year, when transition to the Common Core caused their scores to plummet.

Previous posts: Slim Gains, Slight Drop in English for LA Unified in CA Test Scores; California’s 2013 Testing Results to be Released Thursday; LAUSD Shows Improvement In State Tests

“We’ve outpaced the state in the last five years and continue to, in the face of severe budget cuts,” said Superintendent John Deasy.

The district scores, however, still lag behind the statewide scores.

All students in grades 2 through 11 take the California Standardized Tests (or CST) in a number of subjects. Their scores are placed into one of five categories: “advanced,” “proficient,” “basic,” “below basic” and “far below basic.” The statewide goal is that every student score either “proficient” or “advanced.”

The overall scores also reflect results of three other tests taken by various grades in various subjects, but the largest number of students takes the CSTs.

Test scores had been rising steadily over the last few years, but results this year suggest that the trend may be leveling off, with scores essentially unchanged from last year.

As the above chart shows, the percentage of students in LAUSD deemed proficient or advanced rose, albeit by less than a percentage point, in a number of subjects: math, history and science. The one subject that showed declines was English-language arts, where the percentage of students scoring above “basic” fell by a third of a percent, to 54.1 “proficient” and “advanced,” from 54.4 percent.

English scores dropped among students in elementary school, while they actually rose among students in 7th through 11th grades.

“Statistically, it’s difficult for me to understand why there’s been a slight drop,”
said Deasy, speaking of the English scores as a whole. “We can’t make sense of the state trend either.”

State scores fell this year, after rising every year since 2004

Statewide, test scores fell in both math and English. In a press release State Superintendent Tom Torlakson said did not directly address the slight drop in state scores, although he did suggest that “schools across the state continued to deal with the effects of years of budget cuts and financial uncertainties throughout the 2012-13 school year.”

Deasy pointed out that other important metrics of student achievement in LAUSD showed improvements this year.

“Our graduation rate is about to come out, and that went up again,” he said. “Our AP test score went up, and the number of students taking them went up. Suspensions were down.”

When asked why test scores showed little to no progress even as other numbers improved, he replied, “It’s counter-intuitive. Usually they’re aligned. But to hold flat means we held onto our previous gains.”

Indeed, the district’s gains in just the last five years have been impressive. Since 2008, the percentage of students scoring above “basic” in English has risen by more than 13 points. In the subject area of history, it has improved by 15 points; in math, by more than 10 points.

While black and Hispanic students in particular have shown impressive gains over the years, their test scores are still lower than those of white students, at both a district and statewide level.

“The long-standing achievement gap among student groups remains a matter of great concern and considerable challenge,” said Torlakson.

This was the last year that most students will take the CSTs as LAUSD begins to transition to the Common Core curriculum, a new set of federal standards. By 2015, all students will — supposedly — be taking standardized tests on computers.

“As valuable as (the testing) has been, we’re getting ready to raise the bar in California’s schools,” said Torlakson. “This coming year, many students will have their first chance to try tests that measure their preparation for college and the world of work. That’s a huge challenge for every part of our education system—but one we have to tackle to give every student the opportunity to prepare for a bright future.”

Previous posts: California Student Test Scores Coming Later This Morning, California’s 2013 Testing Results to be Released Thursday; LAUSD Shows Improvement In State Tests