Math Scores Fall; Klein Blames A Harder Test

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City students this year scored worse on the statewide math test than in 2005 but won the praise of the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, who said the test was more difficult than in previous years.

The city did worse than the rest of the state but better than other large cities: 57% of New York City’s third- through eighth-graders passed the test, compared with 35% in Rochester, Yonkers, Syracuse, and Buffalo, according to results released yesterday.

“We’re clearly on the right path,” Mr. Klein said. “We still have a tremendous amount of work to do.”

This year, 71% of city fourth-graders passed the math test, compared with 77% in 2005, but the 2006 scores were up 2 percentage points versus 2004. In the eighth grade, 39% passed, a drop from 41% in 2005 and 42% in 2004.

The state education commissioner, Richard Mills, also said the test was harder this year and applauded the city’s scores despite the drop.

“It fell back a little with this new exam but didn’t fall back very much,” he said. “That’s encouraging.”

The city test results, which for the first time included third through eighth grade, showed a steady decline as grade levels rose — the same pattern that appeared in reading test results, which were released last month. While school districts across the state shared the trend, the drops between each grade were more dramatic in New York City and other large cities.

“It’s not because there’s something with the math test that became harder in the eighth grade,” Mr. Mills said. “This pattern is not inevitable and can be changed.”

An education researcher at New York University, Robert Tobias, who is also a former director of testing for the city, noted that between third grade and eighth grade the gap between the proportion of students who pass statewide compared with the proportion who pass in the city nearly triples.

“What happens is the standards get tougher and tougher,” he said. “While all students in the state are finding the more difficult levels challenging, clearly it’s a bigger challenge for kids in the city.”

The executive director of Honest Open Logical Decisions on Mathematics Education Reform, Elizabeth Carson, was also concerned about the trend.

“There’s something terribly wrong. As the students are required to build on previous knowledge, the work becomes more difficult and mores and reliant on what students were taught before,” she said. “You must lay a solid foundation or the kids are going to hit a wall when they approach algebra, and that’s exactly what you see.”

Mr. Klein said the Department of Education was focused on how to improve math instruction in middle school, with an emphasis on attracting higher quality teachers.

City charter schools scored better overall than the rest of city schools combined, with 66% of all grades meeting standards.

“We’re very encouraged by the results and overall charter schools are outperforming on a statewide basis,” the policy director for the New York Charter School Association, Peter Murphy, said. “It clearly warrants that more are needed.”

The proportion of students that scored a level 1, demonstrating serious academic difficulties, was 16% for both schools citywide and charter schools, however, and three charter schools were among the worst scoring schools in the city.

The late arrival of the test scores, which were expected at the end of the summer, meant that more than 1,000 students went to summer school unnecessarily. Last month, it was determined that 339 students were sent to summer school unnecessarily due to their reading scores. The city relied on raw data released by the state in June to determine which students had scored a level 1, meaning they couldn’t move on to the next grade. Although this group of students passed the test the first time, the students were held back because they failed the test the second time at the end of summer school. Mr. Klein said they would be offered the option of moving on to the next grade.

Mr. Mills explained that the test was harder this year in response to calls from education experts and advocates to raise standards.

Some advocates remained skeptical about the test’s level of difficulty, however. Both statewide and city scores were still much higher than the city’s scores on national tests, which Ms. Carson said demonstrated that the state test isn’t rigorous enough.


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