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November 1, 2011

Bucking national trend, some New York students slip on NAEP

by Philissa Cramer, at 12:58 pm

News on “the nation’s report card,” sent home today by the U.S. Department of Education, is not good for New York State.

New York was one of just two states to post statistically significant declines on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a biennial assessment administered by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The state’s fourth-grade math scores fell for the second straight time, from a high of 243 points in 2007 to 238 this year. Scores on the eighth-grade math test and the reading tests showed no significant change.

Just 35 percent of fourth-graders in New York scored proficient or higher on the exam, considered the only reliable yardstick for measuring educational progress in a field of flawed state assessments. On the state’s own tests, whose scores dropped last year when state officials acknowledged that they had been inflated, more than 66 percent of fourth-graders were considered proficient in math.

It was the discrepancy between state test scores and NAEP results that triggered state officials to acknowledge that the state’s test scores were inflated in the first place.

State Education Commissioner John King called today’s results “disappointing and unacceptable.” In a statement, he said new state tests aligned with the Common Core curriculum standards, set to be given for the first time in three years, would improve New York students’ performance on the NAEP.

New York’s slip does not come as a total surprise. Math scores for fourth-graders fell in 2009, too — and that was when state test scores showed improvement. Since then, fourth-graders’ state math scores have stagnated, making any improvement or even stability on NAEP unlikely.

Nationally, students performed slightly better than ever before on the exam,. On average, score rose on fourth- and eighth-grade math tests and on the eighth-grade reading exam, while scores on the fourth-grade reading test stayed flat.

Despite this year’s stumble, over the last two decades, New York has seen a narrowing of the achievement gaps between white and black students and white and Hispanic students on the fourth-grade math exam, and also a narrowing of the gap between higher- and lower-income students in eighth-grade.

Today’s scores are for New York State as a whole; New York City results will come out later along with data from other urban school districts. Predicting the city’s NAEP picture isn’t straightforward: The city’s state test score gains have outpaced the state’s, but with so many of the state’s students enrolled in New York City schools, it would be hard for NAEP scores statewide to move one direction if the city’s scores moved the other way.

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  • Koozy14

    One by one, the nails are being hammered into the coffins of those “educational reformers” who created and spun their own statistics…now the important part is for Klein, Tisch, Bloomberg, and Stein to bear full responsibility for the deception… 

  • King’s ignorance

    State Education Commissioner John King called today’s results “disappointing and unacceptable.” In a statement, he said new state tests aligned with the Common Core curriculum standards, set to be given for the first time in three years, would improve New York students’ performance on the NAEP.

    What an idiotic statement by King. It is a demonstration of the ignorance of the noneducators leading education right now. To say that the tests themselves would improve New York student’s performance is so dumb it is scary. They do not care if New York’s children learn anything or grow at all. They only care about the number on a report.

  • old teach

    In addition to the mayor, his chancellors, the state education officials most notably former commissioner Mills, all should be investigated for this obvious failure of leadership. This education miracle has led to doubling the NYC budget for education and the results again prove to be abyssmal. What response and action will the state regents now take? Perhaps these education leaders should start listening to the people who actually work in the schools on a daily basis and for years. Watch how somehow they will once again lay the blame on the teachers and their unions.

  • SickofBloomberg

    1) Is it such a big surprise when the battle cry in elementary schools is READING, READING, READING??
    2) Until it is recognized that common branch licensed teachers are no longer qualified to handle the demands of curriculum changes these people are fighting a losing battle.
    3) As previously stated this just reflects the abysmal leadership of the last decade in education in NYS and NYC.  The eformers have done nothing but trnsfer some funding dollars from public schools to private schools.  Their “reforms” are nonexistent and follish.
    4) I second the comment that testing will correct student performance.
    5) Let teachers teach and hold student accountable.  Social promotion is rampant and fueled by erroneous test data.

  • SickofBloomberg

    Sorry, a correction.
    4) I second the comment that suggesting a new test will correct student performance.

  • SickofBloomberg

    is ridiculous.

  • Driving Miss Daisy

    ARIS has been in existence in my school for about two years. Workshop after workshop, PD after PD, only one conclusion has been drawn. Data is nowhere to be found on ARIS at my school’s site. What a complete waste of teacher’s time.The only data-driven vehicle is my car that drives me home.

  • Tim

    With the caveat that we need to wait to know for sure that NAEP results are at best flat in the city and possibly down, isn’t it safe to conclude at this point that Everyday Math, TERC, and all of their fuzzy brethren are just lousy elementary math curriculums and they’re setting up kids for disaster when they hit high school?

    It’s really and truly past high time for a back-to-basics approach.

  • Vote NO!

    It’s  horrible  that  for  nearly  10  years  the  city  has  placed  a tremendous  effort  on  closing  large  comprehensive  high  schools.  School  which  serve   students  of   different  abilities  in  grades  nine to  twelve.  When  it  has  been  obvious  for  some  time  that  the  big  academic  drop-off  was  occurring  between  grades  four  to  eight.

  • Vote NO!

    “oops…Schools  which  serve…”

  • Michael M. (parent still)

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
    Humpty Dumpty had a bad fall,
    Then all John King’s horses and all John King’s men,
    Concluded young Humpty… could not count to ten.

  • Queens Parent

    Of course test results are getting worse. School districts are forced to implement programs like Teachers College Reading & Writing and Everyday Math. Add to that the schools being deprived of resources to supplement those discredited programs. What does anyone expect?

  • Anonymous

    Unfortunately, we have a State Education Department and a DOE that seems to believe that all that is necessary to produce more learning is better tests.  After nine long years of focusing on testing, with no gains, this is a profound misjudgement about what matters. The state and the city seem to think just ratcheting up “accountability” is all that counts, without improving the conditions of learning.  Instead classroom conditions have been rapidly deteriorating, with class sizes increasing sharply over the last four years.  Just wait until this year’s Kindergarten reaches 3rd grade; what a disaster that will be.  But by then, Michael Bloomberg, lucky guy, will be out of office, and the next mayor will have to take the blame.

  • Guest

    King a non educator? are you kidding .. he is an amazing educator… he ran an amazing school…

  • Roma Giudetti

     Is anyone surprised by these results?  Not if you teach, or have a child in a public school.  The conditions in which kids learn, the curriculum, the administration at the school level – it’s all terrible.  Why even bother to report it.  Nothing will be done to improve the situation.

  • Jennifer

    When articles refer to a “narrowing of the achievement gap,” the numbers need to be disaggregated to see whether the performance of students in levels 3 & 4 are actually sliding.  The inane, dumbed down curriculum forced upon perfectly normal learners is most definitely part of the problem.  Dennis Walcott, do you read this column?!  It’s all about the curriculum and educated parents are applaed by how dumbed down so much of it is.

  • Jennifer

    Correction: ”performance…is…sliding”

  • Jennifer

    “appalled”

  • alancook

    National math test scores continue to be
    disappointing.  This poor trend persists
    in spite of new texts, standardized tests with attached implied threats, or
    laptops in the class.  At some point,
    maybe we should admit that math, as it is taught currently and in the recent
    past, seems irrelevant to a large percentage of grade school kids.

     

    Why blame a sixth grade student or teacher trapped by meaningless
    lessons?  Teachers are frustrated.  Students check out.

     

    The missing element is reality. 
    Instead of insisting that students learn another sixteen formulae, we
    need to involve them in tangible life projects. 
    And the task must be interesting.

     

    Project-oriented math engages kids. 
    It is fun.  They have a reason to
    learn the math they may have ignored in the standard lecture format of a class
    room.

     

    Alan Cook

    info@thenumberyard.com

    http://www.thenumberyard.com

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