SYRACUSE -- Syracuse students are performing worse in math and in English compared to last year. That's according to results of the latest standardized test scores, released today by the New York State Education Department. The tests track progress of raising achievement in grades 3-8.
In the Syracuse City School District, 22.5 percent of students met or exceeded the English proficiency standard. That's down from 25.5 percent last year. About 25.3 percent of students met or exceeded the math standard, down slightly from 25.7 percent last year.
Across the state, the majority of students statewide met or exceeded the state's proficiency standards in both math and ELA, but overall performance remains low and the gaps in achievement persist.
Clearly, there is still much work to be done to prepare students for college and careers.
"These results underscore the urgent need for New York to continue to aggressively move forward with the implementation of the Regents' reform agenda," said Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch. "Through aggressive implementation at the district and school level of higher standards, better and more accurate assessments, a more content rich curriculum and a teacher evaluation system aimed at supporting teaching excellence, we can make tremendous strides towards ensuring all of our children succeed."
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"Student outcomes have been stubbornly flat over time," said Education Commissioner John King Jr. "The Regents reform agenda is designed to change that, by driving long-term gains in student performance."
In an effort to make sure students are college-ready, the Board of Regents is analyzing student performance and making changes to its exams. Here are some of the changes made this year:
- The Department is no longer releasing test questions after they have been administered. Doing this helps to ensure that preparation for the tests goes much deeper than simply reviewing past exams.
- Students now have to answer more multiple choice questions on both the math and English exams. Doing so enables the Department to test a greater range of performance indicators at varying degrees of difficulty. With a greater number of questions to answer, the length of time each test takes to complete has increased.
- Students at every grade level must now write at least one full essay on the English exams (i.e., essays were added to the exams in grades 3, 5, and 7).
- At the Department's request, Daniel Koretz, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is conducting research to help identify the possibility of "score inflation" in the grade 3-8 test results and to propose actions to mitigate such inflation if it is found to exist.
"Better tests are only one part of the reform strategy," King Jr. said. "We're also moving forward in our efforts to ensure better training and better support for the teachers and principals in our schools; to provide more transparent and useful data; and to help our lowest performing schools take the necessary steps to turn around their performance or replace them with innovative alternatives. Taken together, these efforts will dramatically improve the likelihood that New York's students are well-prepared for college and careers."
Are you concerned about the education your student is getting? How do we solve the achievement gap? Will the testing changes have an impact? Leave your thoughts below.
