“There’s a lot to think about: Summer school — would that be mandatory?” asked Simeon Stolzberg, a former charter school authorizer who was leading the exercise. “You could have a year-round school, and maybe every eight weeks there would be a two-week vacation. Think about whether or not there is time in a day for teachers to plan and prep and grade — and eat lunch.”

Some of the teachers laughed, but Stolzberg was completely serious.

“Your calendar is one of the things that will set you a part from a district school,” he told the group, participants in a new program, Apply Right, that is helping prospective charter school leaders by taking them through the most minute details of school planning.

The program and two others, projects of the nonprofit New York City Charter School Center, reflect a growing sense that charter school leaders need more support than they have been getting.

“There were a number of schools that were approved in the last five years that frankly probably should not have been approved,” said James Merriman, the center’s director. “What I think we are seeing is that the bar of entry is being appropriately raised. … We want to see more charter schools, but we’re only really interested in seeing high-quality schools.”

New York is seen as having stronger charter schools than many other states. But in the rush to open new schools in recent years, some weak applications got the green light, Merriman said.

The rush was in part politically inspired. In recent years, charter school supporters focused on birthing as many schools as possible. They had a specific target in mind. They saw a state-imposed cap on the number of charter schools as a ceiling to shatter, and so they worked hard to demonstrate demand for more schools than the cap could accommodate. Last year, legislators raised that cap from 200 schools to 460.

With the start-up frenzy less acute, the center is encouraging prospective school leaders to adopt a more deliberate pace to their planning, especially because the state’s two charter school authorizers are applying increasing scrutiny to charter applications, center officials said.

“Now we have two really strong authorizing bodies in the state of New York that are tightening up their process of vetting charter schools, so we wanted to make sure the best possible applicants had the best possible training to create quality schools, as opposed to a quantity of schools,” said Niomi Plotkin, the center’s director of new schools.

While many city charter schools do post higher test scores than other schools in their districts, some do not. When the city released progress reports for elementary and middle schools last month, charter schools had some of the best grades — and some of the worst, with charters more than twice as likely as traditional district schools to get a failing score. Several schools have struggled with basic operations such as keeping their finances above board. A handful of troubled schools have even been closed down.

Charter school advocates have always aimed to see high-quality schools opened but did not always have much information about best practices, according to Peter Murphy, the director of policy and communications for the New York Charter Association.

“Now that we have more schools, more experience about what works, and what doesn’t, it’s important to share that information,” he said. “We didn’t have all that just starting out.”

Programs for charter school hopefuls “help groups navigate through a government labyrinth, and [they] also help to screen out people who just aren’t ready and need to spend more time working on their school,” Murphy said.

Participation in Apply Right, which costs $1,500 and requires an application, doesn’t guarantee that a team will be able to open a school. The schools still have to be approved by SUNY or the Board of Regents, the state’s two charter authorizers, after a process that includes a series of interviews and several different sets of reviewers.

But charter school authorizers say applications that are thoughtful and consistent have a better shot of being approved.

“There is a huge range of quality, from very coherent, very consistent, wonderful presentations to applications that are incomplete even,” Jason Sarsfield, director of applications for the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, told Apply Right participants last week.

“We often see applications that might present some design element, but their schedule or their staffing plan or their budget isn’t consistent with other areas of their application,” he said. “Maybe they have a special-ed design, but not the staff they talk about in their personnel plan to implement that.”

The inaugural Apply Right class includes 10 school-planning teams. The center wouldn’t disclose how many teams applied or how many of them contain current public school educators. But Merriman said the admissions process was selective and focused on “mom-and-pop” charter schools that might not be able to weather the planning process without expert support.

For Paula Fleshman and Briana Scott, two members of a team that is trying to open a community-oriented charter school in the South Bronx, hiring independent consultants to guide them through the lengthy authorization process wasn’t an option.

“From what we’ve heard, individual consultants can charge anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 or $40,000,” said Fleshman, a former Manhattan middle school teacher. “And that really does prohibit small charter teams like us from accessing the information to really design a school from the ground up.”

Apply Right, she said, is helping the team figure out just how their school will be able to serve the English Language Learners and children with special needs they want to enroll.

“When you first look at the application, all the requirements seem overwhelming,” said Scott, a social worker. “But when you are able to find the resources that are needed to help you develop the finance component, the social services component, the overwhelming component starts to disappear. You become more energetic to reach that goal of putting all these pieces into place and serving children.”

The rates of New York City students passing standardized English and math tests have risen at a faster pace than statewide passing rates overall, and Queens and Staten Island have gone from among the lowest-scoring counties in the state to among the best, according to the Times’ report.

The story mentions in passing that the results of the 2007 federal National Association of Educational Progress showed no significant progress among New York City’s eighth-grade students during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure. Some experts claim that NAEP scores may be a better measure of overall student performance because it’s more difficult to engage in direct test preparation and thus less vulnerable to score inflation.

But Klein dismissed those concerns, telling the Times that the state tests are a valid measure of learning:

“You can’t pass the math test if you don’t know how to do algebra, and you can’t pass the English Language Arts test in the fourth grade if you can’t read the paragraph or understand the paragraph,” he said. “If that’s what test prep is about, teaching people to read and understand paragraphs, that’s what I think education is about.”

Some of the story’s data concerning the achievement gap — the gulf that separates test scores of white and Asian students from those of their black and Hispanic classmates — remains controversial. The gap between the rates of students in each demographic group passing state achievement tests has been halved since Bloomberg took office, according to the Times’ analysis of state data. But the gap in actual scores has shrunk only slightly, because all demographic groups have posted gains. Klein responded to the data, saying:

“You don’t want to see achievement gaps narrow because white kids do less well,” he said. “Our job is to get all kids to basic proficiency and then continue to move them forward, and I think we can do that.”

Some have said the administration isn’t moving quickly enough. Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, believes that the actual gap in scores remains unacceptably high. And NAEP data suggests that New York state’s achievement gap is barely closing and is equal to the nation’s average achievement gap.

A slide from the state's test score PowerPoint presentation

The results of the 2009 state math test are in, and state officials are welcoming them as a sign of overall, if modest, improvement.

More students across the state in grades 3-8 met the proficiency standards than in the previous four years, with 86.4 percent of them scoring proficient, compared to 80.7 percent last year and just 65 percent in 2006, when the state instituted a new math curriculum. In New York City, the percentage of students that met the state’s proficiency standard jumped to 81.8 percent this year from 74.3 percent in 2008.

Unlike with this year’s reading test scores, the math test scores showed similar increases in the percentage of students testing as proficient or better and the scale scores that students posted. Statewide, scale scores, which are considered the most statistically useful way to evaluate test score gains, rose by six points in 2009. New York City slightly edged out the rest of the state, with an 8-point scale score gain.

New York City elementary school students have nearly caught up with the rest of the state in terms of the proportion of students scoring proficient or better, Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement today. (The full press release is at the end of this post.)

New York State’s black and Hispanic students bear most of the responsibility for the scale score increases. Across the state, the scale scores of black and Hispanic students rose by eight points while those of white students rose by five and those of Asian students increased by four points.

During a press conference today, State Education Commissioner Richard Mills repeatedly cautioned against reading the scores as “huge gains,” citing the high proportion of students who did not pass the state exams, particularly those in eighth grade who are set to enter high school unprepared. “We like to see the progress, but it’s not as fast as we want,” he said.

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said the rising test scores are evidence that New York State should join the standards movement, which would create a national measure to evaluate student performance. (The Washington Post reported today that 46 states and Washington, D.C., have signed on to pursue national standards.) “What today’s scores tell me is not that we should be celebrating…but that New York needs to raise its standards,” Tisch said.

To download the New York State Education Department’s PowerPoint presentation, go here.

And here’s the city’s complete press release:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND CHANCELLOR KLEIN ANNOUNCE NEW YORK CITY STUDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIALLY NARROWED THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP WITH STUDENTS STATEWIDE ON ANNUAL MATH TEST

Gap Reduced by Nearly One-Third since Last Year, is 4 Points or Less in Elementary School Grades

Racial Achievement Gap in Eighth Grade Narrows Faster Than Ever Before

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today announced that New York City elementary and middle school students made significant gains at every grade level on the State’s annual math test, substantially narrowing the achievement gap with students in the rest of New York State. A total of 81.8 percent of New York City students in grades 3 to 8 are meeting or exceeding grade-level math standards, compared to 88.9 percent of students in the rest of the State. The gap is narrowest in elementary school-2.3 percentage points in third grade, 3.6 points in fourth grade and 4.0 points in fifth grade. Across grades 3 to 8, just 7.1 percentage points separate City students from their peers statewide. That gap narrowed nearly by one-third since last year and has been cut almost in half in the last three years, even as students across the state made progress. This is the result of the substantial progress New York City students made in math at every grade this year, continuing the consistent improvement since Mayor Bloomberg won control of the school system in 2002. The Mayor and Chancellor made the announcement at P.S./ M.S. 15 in the Bronx where they were joined by United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest A. Logan, and Principal Eddice Griffin.

“The idea of New York City students performing nearly on par with the rest of New York State would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but thanks to the hard work of our teachers, principals, and parents, and the students, we’re well on our way to making it a reality,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Our schools have made a remarkable turnaround since 2002, and New York City is now proof that you shouldn’t have to choose between living in a big city and sending your children to excellent public schools. It’s happening because we are putting children first and holding our schools accountable for results.”

Today, 84.9 percent of students in fourth grade and 71.3 percent of students in eighth grade-the two grades tested by the State since the start of the administration-are meeting or exceeding standards, up from 52.0 percent and 29.8 percent, respectively, in 2002. One in four students is exceeding standards by scoring at the highest level on the test, while just 3.4 percent of students scored at the lowest level on the test. The longstanding racial and ethnic achievement gap continued to narrow. In the eighth grade, black and Hispanic students narrowed the gap with their white peers by more than they have in any other year since 2002. The gap between black and white eighth grade students narrowed by more than it has in the previous six years combined. In addition, English language learners and special education students made larger gains than English-proficient and general education students did.

“I want to congratulate principals, teachers, and parents, who all played a critical role in helping our students continue the remarkable progress they have made since 2002. All of our students are making progress, and we’re continuing to narrow the shameful racial and ethnic achievement gap, especially in eighth grade, where it has been the most persistent,” said Chancellor Klein. “I’d also like to acknowledge the Regents and the State Education Department-especially Commissioner Rick Mills. Today’s results show statewide gains is a testament to their relentless focus on raising academic standards across the State over the last several years.”

“These math scores are further evidence of the incredible gains our schools have made in the past few years,” said Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn. “They’re also a reminder that we can’t afford to reduce our commitment to providing a quality education for every child. These students, along with their parents and teachers, have worked incredibly hard, and we are extremely proud of their achievement.”

“The across-the-board improvements in math testing announced today are something for all of us to celebrate, particularly kids and their teachers, but also all those who play a supporting role in our school communities,” said UFT President Randi Weingarten. “These scores are a testament to our highly qualified teachers and the hard work going on every day in our classrooms. This is evidence that collaboration is essential. Today’s announcement also speaks to money well spent. The progress we’re seeing illustrates how important it is for the City to protect core educational services by restoring some of the proposed education cuts in the city budget. We are moving forward because in addition to qualified teachers, schools have used a consistent math curriculum, and the resources to offer students things like extra tutoring and academic intervention services.”

“The math scores announced today suggest that our school leaders and teachers are making steady progress in bringing our 3rd to 8th graders up to state standards,” said Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest A. Logan. “New York City educators deserve thanks and congratulations for this progress. These scores raise hopes that, with great effort and determination, American educators will eventually help the U.S. regain the global competitive advantage it once enjoyed in science, technology, engineering and math.”

“I am pleased that New York City’s 3-8 math scores have continued to improve. Students entering the third grade in New York City Schools are now scoring comparably, if not above the statewide average,” said Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith. “This type of continued, sustained growth is a direct result of the renewed commitment that the City and the State have made to improving the public schools in this city, and across New York State.”

“I am deeply proud of what the students, teachers, principals and administrations of the public schools in my district have accomplished,” said State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. “It is not coincidental that we have experienced dramatic improvements in test score results and the high school graduation rate, not only in the 33rd Senate district but across the five boroughs, since Mayor Bloomberg has held himself accountable for the performance of our public schools. These results clearly demonstrate why Mayor Bloomberg must continue to have oversight of our public education system.”

“We are always pleased when our children do well; it confirms what we have always known of them. We remain extremely proud of all of our students,” Assembly Member Nelson L. Castro.

Today, more New York City students are meeting or exceeding State standards in math at all grade levels. The percentage of students in grades 3 to 8 meeting or exceeding math standards rose 7.5 percentage points since last year, from 74.3 percent to 81.8 percent. The percentage has risen 24.8 points since 2006, when the State began testing grades 3 to 8. More than one-quarter of students in grades 3 to 8-25.9 percent-are exceeding standards, up from 14.9 percent in 2006. Just 3.4 percent of students scored at the lowest level on the test, down from 15.7 percent in 2006. The average score on the test for students in grades 3 to 8 rose eight points this year, from 672 to 680, meaning that the typical student in New York City is scoring 30 points above the cutoff for meeting standards.

Gains in math by New York City students have been larger than those of students in the State as a whole-both in the past year and since 2002. Across grades 3-8, New York City students have closed the gap with students in the rest of the State from 13.6 points in 2006 to 9.8 points last year to 7.1 points this year. Since 2002, the City’s fourth grade students have closed the gap with students in the rest of the State by 20.8 points, from 24.4 points in 2002 to 3.6 points in 2009. In eighth grade, City students have closed the gap by 13.6 points since 2002, from 27.2 points in 2002 to 13.6 points this year. The smallest gap with the State this year is in third grade, where it is just 2.3 points. A total of 91.4 percent of New York City third graders are meeting or exceeding math standards, the first time that percentage has reached 90 in any grade.

New York City students of all races made progress this year, but black and Hispanic students made the greatest gains, narrowing the racial and ethnic achievement gap. In eighth grade, black and Hispanic students narrowed the gap with their white peers by more than they have in any other year since 2002. The gap between black and white eighth graders fell 5.9 points since last year, more than the 4.9 points it fell in the previous six years combined-a total decline of 10.8 points since 2002. Black students scored 35.0 points below white students in 2002, 30.1 points below white students in 2008, and 24.2 points below white students this year. The gap between Hispanic and white eighth graders fell 6.6 points since last year and has fallen 15.3 points since 2002. Hispanic students scored 34.3 points below white students in 2002, 25.6 points below white students in 2008, and 19.0 points below white students this year.

In the fourth grade, the gap separating black and Hispanic students from their white peers has been more than halved since 2002, even as all students have made significant gains. The gap between black and white fourth grade students narrowed by 3.8 points since last year and has narrowed by 19.5 points since 2002. Black students scored 34.7 points below white students in 2002, 20.2 points below white students in 2008, and 14.5 points below white students this year. The gap between Hispanic and white fourth grade students narrowed by 3.5 points since last year, and has narrowed by 18.7 points since 2002. Hispanic students scored 30.5 points below white students in 2002, 15.3 points below white students in 2008, and 11.8 points below white students this year.

English language learners’ gains exceeded the gains of their English-proficient peers this year, and the percentage of English language learners meeting or exceeding math standards has nearly doubled since 2006. A total of 68.0 percent of English language learners in grades 3 through 8 met or exceeded math standards this year, compared to 58.6 percent last year and 35.8 percent in 2006. A total of 84.1 percent of English-proficient students met or exceeded standards this year, compared to 76.8 percent in 2008 and 60.4 percent in 2006.

Students with disabilities made double-digit gains this year, exceeding the gains of their general education peers. A total of 55.0 percent of special education students met or exceeded standards this year, compared to 43.4 percent last year and 24.9 percent in 2006. A total of 87.6 percent of general education students met or exceeded standards this year, compared to 80.6 percent in 2008 and 62.6 percent in 2006.

The gains among English language learners and students with disabilities were spurred by the Department of Education’s school accountability tools, which focus attention on these special populations.

Copies of the 2009 State math test results can be accessed at www.nyc.gov <http://www.nyc.gov/> .

A screenshot (including a caption) from today's online press conference about state test scores, featuring State Education Commissioner Richard Mills and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch.

More students across New York State scored proficient on the state reading and writing test this year than ever before, and gains by black and Hispanic students drove the improvements. The difference between white and black students’ average scores is now at 18 points, down from 28 in 2006.

More students in New York City scored proficient, too; proficiency rose 18 percentage points to 69 percent from 51 percent in 2006. According to the city Department of Education, the difference between the percentage of black and Hispanic children who scored proficient on the test and the percentage of white students who did now stands at 22 percentage points, down from more than 29 three years ago.

State school leaders described the gains across New York as “moderate” because much of the increases were driven by a greater proportion of children just squeaking past the proficiency cutoff, State Education Commissioner Richard Mills explained during a press conference this morning.

The difference comes from looking at the actual scale scores students received, rather than the percentage of students deemed proficient. Scale scores are considered the most statistically useful way to evaluate test score gains. (Aaron Pallas has written about this on GothamSchools.)

Mills explained the distinction by providing three ways to look at this year’s sixth-grade scores. The first is by looking purely at what proportion of students in the grade tested at basic proficiency. According to that metric, 81 percent of this year’s sixth-graders met proficiency, compared to 60.4 percent of sixth-graders in 2006, the first year of a new statewide curriculum and testing program.

Looking at proficiency over time, 69 percent of children in 3rd grade in 2006 met standards; those are the same children who posted an 81 percent proficiency rating as sixth-graders this year. But the scale scores of that same cohort of children actually dropped slightly over the same period, from 669 to 667. The scale score cutoff for proficiency is 650.

One place where the scale scores did show a big jump was in the scores for black and Hispanic students. ”Black students have increased their performance faster than white students,” Mills said, pointing to an 16-point gain in the scale scores for black students since 2006 (from 641 to 657), compared to just a 6-point gain for white students, whose scores remain 18 points higher on average. The scale score gains for black students show that the average black student is now considered proficient in reading, which was not true three years ago.

Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein touted the scores as signs they are making progress in the public schools. “I’m especially pleased that we are closing the shameful achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white peers faster than ever,” Klein said in a statement released today while he and Mayor Bloomberg were in Washington, D.C., for a conversation with President Obama and others about how to close the achievement gap.

Data the state presented today showed that scale scores in the city have been on the rise over time, but that almost every individual cohort of students has posted nearly identical scale scores each year since 2006.

At the press conference today, Mills and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, participating in a score release for the first time since she was appointed earlier this spring, emphasized that gains have been “steady” and “incremental” across the state. Of the “Big 5″ cities in New York State, which are typically used to benchmark each other, all showed significant gains, Tisch said. New York’s City’s 18-percentage-point improvement in average reading proficiency level put the city at the middle of that group, with Buffalo’s 24-percentage-point gain leading the pack.

Answering a reporter’s question about whether Bloomberg’s school control could have contributed to the gains, Tisch said, “Mayoral control is not part of the conversation about the gains across the state, but it certainly didn’t hurt New York City.” She added that mayoral control probably benefited the city schools by bringing extra resources into the system.

During her introductory remarks, Tisch hinted at her priorities as chancellor. She reiterated a promise, first outlined in a New York Post op/ed last month, to push for a national standard of proficiency, noting that she joined Mills in Chicago in April for a conference of governors intended to start the process to create one. She also said she would focus on changes in scale scores so that schools realize they must help all children ”instead of focusing all of our efforts on getting those just below the cut line to a point of mere proficiency.” And she said that the state must further enhance its test score analysis by looking on a “value-added” at how individual students perform over time.