GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• NY’s tests were shown to be faulty just as more weight is be placed on tests nationally. (NY Times)
• Bloomberg: the state test recalibration is really about “a change in definition.” (Gotham Gazette)
• NY’s next governor should investigate who dumbed the state tests down. (Chalkboard)
• An arts advocate’s blood is boiling because curriculum narrowed to cater to faulty tests. (Dewey21C)
• The case against summer vacation and how to make creativity part of it. (Time)
• Are there enough talented leaders to fill all the jobs RttT will create? (Educated Reporter)
• Part of the Gates teaching grant in Florida is support for new teachers. (St. Petersburg Times)
• Amid contract talks, new Chicago union president calls for ending TFA there. (Alexander Russo)
• A rundown of neighborhoods applying to start Promise Zones. (Paul Tough)
• Arguing that the local press misses the real problem with “gifted” education. (Sara Mead)

Stephen Lazar

Test scores are important. But so are skills that students can never demonstrate on a pencil-and-paper exam.

That’s the lesson Stephen Lazar has learned in his seven years as a city teacher. Writing in the community section, Lazar, a social studies and English teacher at the Bronx Lab School, outlines the non-academic standards he’s realized he wants his students to meet.

Here’s an excerpt from Lazar’s list:

• I want my students to have a set of tools to deal with conflicts other than fighting, yelling, or shutting down.
• I want my students to seek support or help for clinical depression and other mental illnesses. …

In other words, I want my students to be able to deal with the most challenging parts of the world in a healthy way. I want all that in addition to wanting them to be effective communicators, thoughtful readers, and active citizens working to improve the world.

Even if New York State education officials had not decided to raise the scores needed to pass the state exams, today would not have been a particularly good news day for the city.

That’s because in addition to having the state call fewer students proficient, both the city and state saw students’ average raw scores stagnate.

For years, state and city students average scores on the math and reading exams have risen. But from 2009 to 2010, the city students’ average reading exam scores held steady at 662. This trend continued on the math test, which also saw no significant increases or decreases in students’ average scale scores.

When the scores were separated out according to students’ ethnicities, they showed the same result: a flat line.

Speaking at Tweed Courthouse today, Mayor Bloomberg said the steady scores were a sign of progress. “The numbers that really matter are the actual scores,” he told reporters, adding that the state had made the tests more difficult this year. (more…)

When Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch pitches New York’s Race to the Top application to federal judges next month, she’ll be joined by two familiar faces from New York City.

Chancellor Joel Klein and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew will go with state education officials when they travel to Washington, D.C., in two weeks, Tisch announced today.

The three will accompany State Education Commissioner David Steiner and Deputy Commissioner John King, both of whom also represented the state in its first-round presentation in March.

For the first-round presentation, Tisch sent a lower-profile, more technocratic team comprised mostly of state education officials responsible for building the grant application. Things didn’t go well, and the presentation cost the state points.

The addition of Klein and Mulgrew — as well as of Tisch herself — represents a shift in strategy. (more…)

Source: New York State Education Department

The day of reckoning has arrived.

After weeks of warning that adjusted standards would mean far fewer students passing state exams this year, state education officials released the exact numbers today.

Average raw scores on the state third through eighth grade math and reading exams remained flat. But because the state decided to raise the scores required for a student to be deemed proficient, the number of students passing fell sharply.

In New York City and other big cities, the number of students passing reading exams dropped by more than a quarter — from 68.8 percent of city students passing last year to 42.4 percent this year in reading, for example.

Just over 53 percent of third through eighth-grade students statewide passed the reading exam, compared to 77 percent last year. Around 61 percent of students passed their math exams, compared with more than 86 percent last year.

Pass rates of students learning English, students with disabilities, and poor students fell the farthest. The percentage of students learning English who passed the reading exam fell by more than half, from 36 percent to under 15 percent. Just 15 percent of students with disabilities passed the reading exam, compared to 39 percent last year. (more…)

If I have learned anything in the seven years since I first stepped foot into the classroom as a teacher, it is that there is always something more important and foundational than what I think is at any given moment. I first thought teaching was just about academic knowledge, then I thought it was about that and academic skills, but I am beginning to realize that more foundational than either of those things is the need to help student learn to cope with life.

As a student teacher, I kept my full focus on helping my students to have the knowledge and habits of mind necessary to be critical of society and to create a more just world. These are worthy goals, but I realized very quickly in my first full year of teaching in Virginia that none of this mattered if my students could not read and write well.

When I moved to New York and joined the Bronx Lab School for its third year, I added much more focus on improving students’ skills. Over the past four years, as both a history and English teacher while still working towards my original goals, I worked with my students to become better readers and writers so that they would have the academic skills necessary to succeed in college and their careers. Again, these were worthy goals, but last month, as I watched the advisees I’ve had for the past four years walk across the stage to receive their diplomas, I realized that, once again, none of this matters without more fundamental foundations.

Thinking of the students I’ve known who just graduated, here are some of the things I want for them before I think about their academic skills or knowledge of the world:

• I want my students to have a set of tools to deal with conflicts other than fighting, yelling, or shutting down. (more…)

• Researchers found that students with good kindergarten teachers do better later in life. (Times)
• The Daily News says the new, lower-sounding test scores coming out today will be a shock to parents.
• A new website aims to help New Yorkers prepare to take the high school equivalency exam. (NY1)

Race to the Top:

• N.Y. is among 19 Race to the Top finalists. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, Post, NY1, WNYC, WSJ)
• State officials say they won’t be able to execute promised reforms without the money. (GothamSchools)
• Where states are increasingly united, Congress is divided on education policies. (Washington Post)
• A Democrats for Education Reform staffer says N.Y. should up charter school funding to win RttT. (Post)
• Excerpts from Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s RttT speech emphasize the urgency of reform. (Post)
• The Post says it’s all on Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch to make sure the state brings home money.