GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

City schools are scoring higher on state math and reading tests, but they remain near the bottom of all districts statewide on science and social studies tests, a situation that schools officials attribute to budget cuts.

Although social studies and science scores rose last year, they remain very low compared to scores in the rest of the state. Only five of the city’s 32 school districts performed scored at better than the 10th percentile in science, meaning that 90 percent of districts statewide scored better than 27 city districts. In contrast, 18 districts scored at the 10th percentile or higher in math.

Even in high-performing districts, fourth and eighth graders perform poorly on science and social studies tests compared to other students in the state. For example, Manhattan’s District 2 outperformed 86 percent of districts in the state in math. In reading, District 2 students beat out students in 78 percent of districts. But in science, the district scored in just the 27th percentile, meaning that 73 percent of districts had higher average science scores. 

The discrepancy, highlighted in the test score comparison tool launched by the New York Times today, gives ammunition to critics who say the city schools have focused so much on math and reading that they have given short shrift to other subjects.

The early years of Mayor Bloomberg’s Children First reforms did focus most heavily on math and reading, a department spokesman said today. Now, the city is trying to boost science and social studies performance by introducing some of the same strategies that worked for math and reading, such as offering a standardized curriculum in each subject, said the spokesman, Will Havemann. (more…)

City and union officials now say teacher layoffs are unlikely, thanks to an expected infusion of cash from the federal stimulus package’s state stabilization fund. But at least one New York City teacher says the threat of losing her job has already distracted her from doing it as well as she would like to.

The teacher, who blogs at They Call Me Teacher, in her first year in the city, writes:

[Teachers union president Randi] Weingarten is right. Teachers start hearing they’ll be losing their jobs, and we all start thinking about what to do, where to go, etc. etc… which means, we are Not putting all of our energy into teaching our students who desperately need all the teaching time they can get (at least mine do!). …

Teaching in this city is 100 times more stressful than I ever wish upon anyone.