New York math test results
A big news day today, as New York released the results from the math test given to all 3rd thru 8th graders in the state. Overall, the results were excellent -- and exceptionally so in NYC! One of these days, the test scores will shut up the critics of Bloomberg and Klein's reforms -- but I'm not holding my breath...
Below is the article from the NYT, followed by the city's press release. It's especially nice to see the shrinking achievement gap:
While students at all grade levels progressed, gains achieved by black and Hispanic students—who historically have lagged behind their white and Asian peers—were the largest. Since 2006, the percent of black students in grades three through eight scoring at Levels 3 and 4 climbed 9 percentage points to 55.4%, and the percent of Hispanic students scoring at the highest levels rose 9.3 percentage points to 59%. By comparison, the percent of white students scoring at Levels 3 and 4 climbed 5.4 percentage points to 82.7% and the percent of Asian students scoring at Levels 3 and 4 increased by 4.4 percentage points to 88.4%. Since 2002, the percent of black students meeting standards has risen to 55.4%; an increase of 29 percentage points; since 2002, the percent of Hispanic student meeting standards has risen to 59%, an increase of 29.6 percentage points. Overall, the gap among the percentage of blacks and Asian and white students meeting and exceeding standards decreased by 10.1 and 7.7 percentage points respectively since 2002. Similarly, since 2002, the gap among Hispanic, Asian and white students also decreased by 10.7 and 8.3 points respectively.
To see New York City's and the state's slide presentations, with lots of helpful charts, you can go to: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/irts/press-release/20070612/home.htm.
To see the entire 1211-page report with school-by-school data for every school in the state, you can go to: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/irts/ela-math/math-07/PublicDistrict-School-ISR-Math.pdf.
PS - Gotta love Randi -- always on message: "If the small group instruction is playing a part here, imagine what would happen if we significantly lowered class sizes for everyone?" Note that she didn't say smaller class sizes had anything to do with the improvements (I've seen no evidence for this whatsoever), but she still manages to call for it anyway...
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New York Students Post Higher Math Scores
Math scores for students across New York State improved significantly this year, pushed higher by consistent performance gains in New York City, according to scores on the annual statewide math exam released by state officials today.
posted by Whitney Tilson at 2:09 PM
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