Rob Saxton, Oregon’s top K-12 education official, deserves credit for straight talk.

“We can’t be sugarcoating things that we have a tendency to want to sugarcoat,” he told The Oregonian. “We need to be honest with what kinds of outcomes we are having with students and what that is going to mean for them in college or in the workplace.”

Saxton was discussing the high failure rates he expects when Oregon students take the new Smarter Balanced tests in the spring. In November, he participated in setting the so-called cut scores that establish who passes and who fails. The results won’t be pretty.

Oregon estimates are similar to those across the 17 states that will use the new tests, where 41 percent of 11th-graders are expected to be labeled proficient in English/language arts, with 33 percent reaching that level in math. Eleven percent are expected to get the top rating, which exempts them from remedial work at many universities.

The fact many students now need remedial work in college is emblematic of K-12 schools’ failure to teach at a high-enough level, according to Saxton. Further evidence comes from disappointing results on other tests, such as the SAT and ACT.

Students can earn good grades and advance to the next grade without passing the Smarter Balanced tests. Also, a lower cut score will be established for graduation requirements. The scores will be used to judge schools, and in 2016 they’ll be a minor element in teacher evaluations.

Saxton sees evidence that the new tests, along with the Common Core State Standards, are prompting schools to change the way they teach. That can be expected to improve students’ ability to think and analyze, which should improve their scores.

But more immediately, the tests will give students and their parents a better idea of their chances of success in college, possibly leading to better choices about how they prepare. For example, Saxton told The Oregonian, an 11th-grader who doesn’t meet the standards might chose to take additional math or writing classes in senior year.

Oregon is fortunate to have an education chief who faces up squarely with the need to raise standards — no sugarcoating allowed.