Bob Ellis/staff photographer SUNY Cortland graduate student Kristin Weeks works with Lindsey Van Dusen, and Brandon Tvaroha on creating a puzzle to demonstrate what they just read in this file photo.
State test
change
lowers scores
Educators try
to understand,
adjust to new
assessment scoring
New York state has raised the bar for its assessment tests in math and English language arts, leaving educators to wonder how to adjust what they teach and how to explain the scores to taxpayers.
Local school districts generally improved on the tests for grades three through eight — at least, according to the scoring done before the state changed its standards earlier this month.
The test scores released Wednesday by the state Education Department use a new cutoff score for proficiency and redefine which students need help to graduate from high school and go to college without remedial classes.
The cutoff score for proficiency, or Level 3 of the four levels, was raised from 650 to varying levels depending on the grade. Level 4 means mastery of the subject.
The higher standard meant more students scored not just at Level 3 than in previous years but also at Level 2. School officials said this means some students at Level 2 are actually on track to graduate from high school but need more help.
The state Board of Regents changed the standard earlier this month because it felt students did not know as much, and were not as prepared for college, as the test scores indicated.
Education Commissioner David Steiner said studies showed New York eighth-graders who scored at Level 3 on the ELA test still had a 50-50 chance of getting a 75 out of 100 on the Regents English test. A score of 75 means a student needs remedial work at many colleges, according to the Education Department.
New York students were also improving on state tests but remaining flat on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test that samples students nationwide but is not taken by every student. But Steiner wants to adjust New York’s curriculum to match a national curriculum, which will help the state receive federal aid.
New York was named a finalist for the second round of Race to the Top funds from the Obama Administration.
Statewide, students in the six grades dropped from 77 percent at proficiency to 53 percent in ELA, and from 86 percent proficiency to 61 percent in math.
Superintendents of schools and principals say they need to digest the new scores and cannot compare this year to previous years.
“It’s like the health department saying that a good weight was 125 pounds but now it’s 100 pounds, so instead of 50 percent of the population being overweight, now it’s 75 percent,” said Brenda Myers, Groton superintendent of schools. “The percentage has changed not because people gained weight but because the standard changed.”
Myers said Groton students showed steady growth in both subject areas, but this year’s scores will not reflect that. She said the public needs to see these scores as just one piece of a child’s education, along with other subjects and athletics and the arts.
Read More . . .
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- BDC airing clean up Cortland radio ad
- Homer to use iPods to enhance reading skills
- Second prescription drug collection event planned
- Cardiologist joins CRMC medical staff
- ‘Brigadoon’ brimming with music, laughs
- Editorial: Billions wasted in Iraq
- Death and Birth Notices
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