ELA and Math scores
The latest ELA and Math scores for our third through fifth grade students (this past school year) are nothing short of depressing. We had a good feeling about those tests and expected a nice increase over the 2009 scores. Our teachers work hard all year on reading and math skills, engaging learners, making the stories exciting, inspiring kids to read more, and teaching math facts and techniques until the cows come home. The Accelerated Reader program got kids to read hundreds more books than they had the year before. But the bar had to be raised. Each year, the bar was lowered just slightly by the testing company and the Regents, which made the test results meaningless. Raise the bar and then lower the bar. The other factor playing into the lower percentage of passing students (which is a factor every year) is that every student in Dover represents one percentage point (or close to it). In a class of 106 students, each student weighs one point. In a district like Wappingers, for instance, with 914 students in the fifth grade, it takes nine students to move them one percentage point. Therefore, if ten students in the third grade get that one determining question wrong on the math assessment, the entire grade level drops by ten percentage points.
There is work to be done, work that will not only increase student achievement (and I’m not talking about the state tests here), but also help us as a faculty and district to see better what it is that we can focus on for the future of our curriculum. As a nice side effect, the state test scores should go up as well!
If you would like to read the New York State Commissioner of Education’s letter regarding the decision to change the scoring system, click here: http://www.nyssba.org/index.php?src=news&submenu=news_media&srctype=detail&category=On%20Board%20Online%20August%209%202010&refno=1450.
