Letters to the Editor
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‘Accommodations Do Not Benefit the Student’
There was an error in Andrew Wolf ‘s otherwise thoughtful column [OpEd, “Did the Dog Eat Mills’s Homework?” December 21-23, 2007]. Mr. Wolf described how the State Education Commissioner, Richard Mills, has tried to downplay the bad news from the federal government’s tests of mathematics and reading.
Mr. Wolf correctly noted that the state’s own tests produce far rosier results than the national tests The latest federal test results showed that there were no academic gains for students in New York City or New York State from 2003 to 2007, except in fourth grade math. Wolf erred in saying that 21% of students in New York City were “assessed with accommodations,” which means that they got extra time or other advantages when they took the tests. Actually, 25% of New York City fourth grade students got accommodations when they took the math test, as did 22% of fourth graders who took the reading test.
Far more New York City students were given accommodations than in other cities that were tested. The figure for New York City students doubled between 2003 and 2007. This is not because we have more students who are English language learners. In Los Angeles, for example, nearly half the students are English language learners, but only 5% of them were assessed with accommodations.
Accommodations do not benefit the student because no individual scores are reported. They do benefit the district, however, by giving extra help to students who might get lower scores. This explains why federal officials (as your Elizabeth Green reported) are now trying to set a national standard to define which students should be given accommodations or excluded from taking the national tests.
The unusually large number of accommodations granted in New York City supports Mr. Wolf’s assertion that the NAEP is taken seriously by school officials, and that Commissioner Mills is wrong to belittle the poor results on the NAEP as contrasted with what appear to be inflated results on the state tests.
Diane Ravitch
Research Professor of Education
New York University