The State Ed Dept. published the math test scores before the end of school this year–the first time in recent memory. Maybe they couldn’t wait.
Statewide, every single grade increased its performance, and New York City outstripped the statewide gains. Level 1s declined across the board, and there was a 7-point jump in the percentage of state students meeting standards.
A 1:30 p.m. press conference hailing the city results was canceled at the last minute because the chancellor was stuck in another city on a plane that wouldn’t fly. But it was rescheduled for later today, and the city went ahead and posted its summary on the DOE website. You can imagine how much hay the chancellor and the mayor will make of this, and truthfully, teachers should be proud.
Third grade up 7 points; fourth grade up 3 points; fifth and sixth grade each up 10 points; seventh grade up almost 12 points and eighth grade up 7 in percentages meeting standards by scoring at Levels 3 and 4. New York was head and shoulders above three other big cities, both in absolute scores and in percentage change. For grades 3-8 inclusive 65.1 percent of NYC students met standards, up from 57 percent in 2006.
State Commissioner Mills, in his press conference earlier today, pointed to New York City as the poster child for math. “New York has concentrated on curriculum, made information on good practice available, and invested heavily in the data,” Mills said. “I get a consistent explanation from Klein. NYC is quite obviously on the right track. Ask Chancellor Klein. I’m sure there’s a determination there to keep going.”
What was behind the gains? In the city, standard, high-quality math curriculums have been in use for a few years now. Higher math standards, put in place by the Regents in 2005, have helped pull up performance. Training and professional development for math teachers has evidently paid off, and there may be a clearer sense of what students should know and be able to do at each grade in math than in other subjects.
Were the tests easier? State Ed. releases the tests themselves, so it is possible to examine them and see. It will take some time to digest all that and analyze the results. But today is first and foremost a day to take credit. Math teachers: have a great summer.
1 Comment:
1 jd2718
· Jun 14, 2007 at 11:25 pm
High-quality math curriculums? Egads. Talk to some 25 period math teachers…
Higher standards put in place by the Regents? How about a total retreat from the disasterous introduction of “performance standards” (in place of content standards) almost a decade before.
Comparing single year numbers is never going to provide us with anything meaningful. The DoE and the papers report them, since, hey, they are numbers. But we should be sceptical.
Some math teachers will have nice summers, knowing that we finally ran Math A out of town, with Math B soon to follow.
But now we get all the pressure of losing how many days for these interim assessments? Three days stolen, in return for meaningless data. Ouch.
Jonathan