Johnson: Beware of RVC test scores

An overwhelming percentage of Rockville Centre elementary students who took the New York State Assessments attained the top two levels in both math and English Language Arts proficiency, according to data presented by the Board of Education during its meeting on Oct. 19.

But superintendent Dr. William Johnson was cautious about the results because nearly two-thirds of eligible Rockville Centre School District students sat out the English Language Arts state assessments in grades 3 through 8 in April, while sixty percent of students — 811 in all — opted out of the math assessment.

“What happens is that the data we begin to get back from the state essentially is uninterpretable,” he said. “If we have only half of the kids, we don’t know how well the other half might have performed. We don’t even sometimes know what kind of scores they would have gotten because we just have no data to compare it to from the state.”

The opt-out movement caused Rockville Centre to have anywhere from about 47 percent in third grade opting out to as high as 75 percent of the students in eighth grade.

Johnson also said the test was compromised because the state admitted that the results cannot by used to place or promote a student or be used as a tool to evaluate teachers.

“What we now know is that the validity of the results have been seriously compromised by the fact that very few of our kids are taking the exam,” he said. “In addition to that, the state, virtually by the fact that it also invited a number of teachers in to modify the actual test questions also compromised the validity of the test itself.”

According to the Common Core performance level descriptions, students who reached Level 3 on the assessment are considered “proficient in standards for their grade” and “demonstrate knowledge, skills, and practices” embodied by the state standards. Level 4 students “excel in standards for their grade” and are considered “more than sufficient” for the expectations of their particular grade.

By comparison, Level 1 students are “well below proficient” and Level 2 students are considered “partially proficient”.

As per the test scores, 71 percent of RVC third graders and 78 percent of fourth graders reached the top two levels in ELA proficiency, while the average marks of New York state were 42 and 41 percent, respectively. Sixty-seven percent of fifth graders reached that mark, compared to 34 percent for the state.

The sixth (27 percent), seventh (42 percent) and eighth graders (41 percent) were not as proficient and were close to the state averages.

In math, a whopping 81 percent of fourth graders reached proficiency or better, while the fifth graders topped out a 72 percent. In addition, 98 percent of the fourth graders reached the top levels in science.

Like ELA, the sixth (44 percent) and seventh graders (46 percent) struggled in math.

The students also took the NWEA reading and math assessments during the 2015-16 school year and each mean score was better than the national numbers.