CFE Funding and the New York Test Results

Over the years, and especially this past week, concern has risen about whether the New York State tests are reliable indicators of absolute student achievement. The arguments are familiar to all of us. Standardized tests do not test the full curriculum. They are subject to gaming; they show gains at odds with NAEP; and their calibration from year to year seems far less a science than an art. But regardless of whether or not these tests are accurate in terms of actual gains, they probably aren’t meaningless. At the very least, they probably allow us to glean relative gains across large populations. After all, if the tests are easier, then all the scores go up. But if scores go up more for some large groups than for others, it ought to make us pause.

In light of that, let’s look at two interesting facts:

Money: In the 2007-2008 school year, CFE finally brought significantly increased funding to New York State’s high needs districts. New York City, along with four other large urban areas (Rochester, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Syracuse) were the main beneficiaries of these funds.

Scores: In the 2007-2008 year, these same five cities (the Big Five) generally outpaced statewide gains on the annual tests in ELA and Math. Overall in grades 3-8:

• Math was up 8 points statewide, but 9-15 points in the Big Five. Buffalo, Rochester, and Yonkers gained 15, 15, and 12 points respectively

• ELA was up 5 points statewide, but 7-9 points in the Big Five

These bigger gains, like the additional CFE resources, are something new for the Big Five. Last year, score changes in the cities roughly paralleled the state, and the same is true for the three years before that. In those three years, in the instances where cities did depart from the state, half the time they did a little better, and half a little worse. (See here and here for state/city data)

One year of numbers is hardly conclusive, and standardized tests can never give us a very complete picture of what our kids are learning at school. Still, it is interesting that the first year of money also brought a better rate of gain.

The longitudinal scores in New York City are interesting as well. Joel Klein would like his fear and punishment policies to get the credit for this year’s increases, but the numbers don’t support that. We’ve been living with Joel Klein’s Children First reforms for five years now, but the passing rates didn’t generally increase much until this year. What is more, passing rates increased more in the three years before Children First (2000-2003) than they did in the four years after that. For example, ELA in grade 4 increased by 10 points from 2000 to 2003, but only 3.5 over the next four years (through 2007, and before CFE money). In Grade 8, the ELA passing rate did increase more quickly after Children First, but only as much as it did in the other four big cities, and not as much as the state. Overall, most of the gains for which Joel Klein would like to take the credit occurred before his programs started, or after the funding came in 2008, with CFE.

The extent to which these gains will hold is anybody’s guess, but if they do, improvement is hard to tie to Klein’s reforms.

More likely, what mattered was the cash. Even before CFE, more competitive salaries strengthened the pool of new teachers whose skills then improved as they gained experience. Then came the first year of CFE. In schools, money translates into time and people. CFE meant schools could provide time for teachers to plan together, improve together, and discuss students and their needs.In places where classes got smaller, teachers could devote more time to each child, and throughout the system kids got to spend more time getting help in small groups, or after school, or on the weekend. And extra personnel not only provided the tutoring for these small groups; it also provided support on behavioral issues.

In other words money has changed the much-maligned “inputs.”

And maybe that’s the difference shadowed in the scores.

Score date can be found at the following links: here, here, here and here.

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