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City eighth graders showed the most improvement in state reading test scores released Tuesday by the state education department. NY1 Education reporter Michael Meenan filed the following report.
"I was particularly pleased by the middle schools because it's been clearly the toughest challenge that we face,” said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein Tuesday, with a smile of relief on his face as he spoke about state reading scores for this year's third through eighth graders.
These big tests, scored one through four, have a lot of weight on whether kids get promoted, with one a failing mark, two barely passing and three and four over the bar.
In 2007, 56 percent of the city’s English-proficient third through eighth graders met the state’s reading standards, but when students learning English as a second language are included, the passing rate fell to about 51 percent, virtually the same overall rate as last year. The passing rate of 56 percent for English-proficient students is about three points higher than the same group for last year, but still well below the statewide overall average of about 62 percent.
"We have more work to do; that’s a point I have been making repeatedly," said Klein.
Since last year's results showed a large majority of eighth graders not reading at grade level, middle schools have been under serious pressure to improve. One Manhattan middle school put on a full court press and got over 80 percent of its kids to pass.
"It takes a concentrated effort, and not just on the language arts. I think that’s the secret. It should also be in social studies and science, and that's one of our big emphasis, so there is reading and writing across the day,” said Joseph Cassidy, principal of The Clinton School.
Cassidy runs a small middle school with only a couple of hundred kids so he can target where improvements are needed. Bigger, more crowded schools tend to have scores not nearly as high, especially since immigrant kids just learning English now have to take the test as well. Only 16 percent of those kids passed, and the president of the teachers' union said it is unfair to test kids in a language they don't yet understand.
"It was a federal requirement, but a requirement that we thought the state should fight,” said United Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten.
The test does have consequences, sometimes to the good, as in the drop of four points in kids reading at the lowest level.
"That’s going to mean fewer kids in the grades affected are going to be subject to the summer school program,” said Klein.
And for third, fifth and seventh graders, these scores are really important because combined with math test results, which will be released next month, they will decide whether those kids go onto summer school or on to the next grade in September.
- Michael Meenan
6 years ago
