New York Times: New York Eighth Graders Show Gains in Reading By David M. Herszenhorn...The number of eighth graders reading at grade level or above in New York State climbed impressively this year for the first time since 1999, when the state adopted tougher educational standards and its modern testing system, according to scores released yesterday from the annual statewide English exam.
The eighth-grade results showed the most clear-cut advances in a year in which students in all tested grades, third through eighth, demonstrated better reading ability, including overall gains by students in New York City, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made education a cornerstone of his administration.
The results were complicated, however, by a new federal requirement that the exam be administered to all students who have been in school in the United States for at least a year, even those who have yet to learn English.
Because of the change, nearly 40,000 more children with limited English ability, most of them in New York City, took this year’s test than in 2006, creating an appearance of declining scores in Grades 3 and 4. When those students’ results were factored out to make the numbers comparable to last year’s, officials said there was slight improvement.
The sharp increase in the proportion of eighth graders reading at or above grade level statewide, to 57 percent from 49.3 percent, provided a first spark of hope that school districts were beginning to turn around a long record of academic failure in middle school. Scores also improved in the sixth and seventh grades though more modestly.
It was the first time since the modern testing system was adopted in 1999 that more than half of the state’s eighth graders showed an ability to read proficiently.
“We have deplored low performance in middle grades in the past,” said the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, at a news conference in Albany. “But when you see improvement and you call and find out that people earned improvement by doing the right things, we have an obligation to celebrate that.”
He acknowledged, however, that the overall middle school results remained sobering, with more than 40 percent of seventh and eighth graders still failing despite this year’s gains.
In New York City, home to more than three-quarters of the state’s students with limited English skills, officials said they were pleased with the scores, which they said showed that the city was holding onto recent gains in the early grades and making new strides in the middle grades.
When the results of the students with limited English were excluded, scores in New York City improved in all grades except third grade, where scores were flat. Overall, across all grades, the proportion of New York City students meeting the state English standards rose 2.8 percentage points, to 56 percent from 53.2 percent last year.
And in eighth grade, the city showed the same solid gain that the state did, with the students meeting standards rising to 46.4 percent from 38.5 percent. The city’s gains, however, mostly disappeared when the students with limited English were factored in. With those students included, the proportion of all New York City students meeting the standards remained essentially flat, moving to 50.8 percent from 50.7 percent.
And including these students in early grades led to a drop in scores, of 5.1 percentage points in third grade, 2.9 points in fourth grade and six-tenths of a point in fifth grade.
Still, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said that the results showed “significant, consistent growth” citywide and that he was heartened by improvements in scores among black and Hispanic students and children with disabilities.
Mr. Klein, too, said he was keenly aware of the large numbers of students still failing to read at grade level. “It’s a question of whether the glass is half empty or half full,” he said at a press briefing. “It’s clearly half full and getting fuller by the year.”
But not everyone was impressed. Diane Ravitch, a historian of the city school system, said that officials had long propped up scores by excluding non-English speakers. Such students should be tested, she said, and their results included in any official tally.
“I don’t see a revolution in these scores,” she said. “I see small, crablike steps. The scores are pointed in the right directions, but they are small, small gains and I would have expected big gains. By now they can no longer blame the dysfunctional system. They own it. “
