Math, ELA scores drop in NYS

By Andrew Hackmack and Judy Rattner

Test scores fell throughout New York and across Long Island after the State Education Department raised the bar at all grade levels in an effort to better prepare students for higher education.

In recent years, school districts across the state had enjoyed continually increasing passing rates in English Language Arts and math. Students in grades 3 through 8 are tested every year. In addition to the scoring changes this year, the tests were moved to May, from January for the ELA and from March for math.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner had recommended increasing the "cut scores," which determine a student's proficiency level. Students scoring at levels 1 and 2 are considered to be in need of academic intervention, while those at levels 3 and 4 are considered to have passed.

According to the state, under the new scoring guidelines, students at Level 2 have only have a 75 percent chance of getting a passing grade of 65 on the English or algebra Regents exams.

The higher cut scores mean many students who were scoring at Level 3 are now at Level 2. This year, across the state, 53 percent of all students tested passed the ELA exam, compared with 77 percent last year. Math proficiency dropped dramatically as well, from 86 percent to 61 percent.

While scores also dropped in the Long Beach City School District, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Vincent Butera said that the decline in Long Beach was not as precipitous compared to scale scores in Nassau County. In Nassau, the ELA scale scores dropped from 680.3 to 677.9, while in Long Beach, the scale score crept from 675.6 to 675.7 this year. In Math, the drop was 696.9 to 692.9, while in Long Beach, the scale score dipped from 690.5 to 689.1.

"The actual data shows a decrease in Nassau County in the scale score for grades 3 through 8, but in Long Beach it remained flat," Butera said. "In math, there was a much greater drop througout the county and we saw a slight decrease."