Half Empty or Half Full?
September 25th, 2006
Are there any numbers that get spun more than student test scores? Witness Thursdays release of scores on the statewide reading test for third through eighth grade. The disturbing though not completely surprising news: The longer kids throughout the state stay in school the worse they do. In the city, 51.5 of city third graders met standards on the test, but by eighth grade, only 36.6 percent of students passed the test.
Beyond that, everyone seemed to see what they wanted to see. The News released the scores a day early, declaring proudly, The city’s fourth-grade reading and writing scores are holding steady, maintaining the historic gains that helped Mayor Bloomberg win reelection last year, the Daily News has learned. (Now, who do you think might have leaked this story?)
On Friday, after the state released the results, the Times, in a comment later removed from its updated story, said the city Department of Education had prepared a briefing to put the best face on the scores.
Chancellor Klein held a press conference to announce the city results this afternoon. Predictably, he spun it all super positively for the city, observed Edwize, the United Federation of Teachers blog.
And there was good news for the city. Although the test is new, making comparisons difficult, as the Times reported, 61.5 percent of the citys third graders scored at or above grade level in English, up 8 points from a similar test the previous year. And while fourth grade scores, fell in the state as a whole, they remained unchanged in the city. On the down side, the number of city fifth grades reading at or above grade level declined by about 10 percentage points.
In the Daily Gotham, Daniel Millstone cites another alarming figure: a 50 percent increase in the number of children reading at the lowest level and a decrease in the number at the highest level. This may mean that we’re losing our better students and increasing the number who are failing completely, he writes. Years of rigid mayoral control, lockstep curriculum and ceaseless test-prep are not helping our children learn.
And what about that middle school drop?
Is the problem in testing or in the students? wonders Danny Homeschooling Dad, a California father who saw the results. Or just teaching? Or something else, like the students are becoming less of a conformist and become more creative and rebellious, i.e., less likely to become slaves followers.
And in its editorial the Daily News holds to its faith in Bloomberg and Klein. The city’s schools have been making great strides, it says. The improvements began after Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein refused to accept the status quo. Klein has already taken aim at middle schools, and the paper says, If anything, these dismal test results should give him more muscle in a fight to stop teachers and principals from treating kids as if they naturally become dull at the age of 12.
He has a lot of work to do. The middle school mess has long been a problem in New York and throughout the country. In conversations few parents around the city even those who have found god elementary and high schools for their kids have much good to say about their kids middle schools. And a quick look at the results show even some of the citys most respected public middle schools saw that the sharp declines between sixth and eighth grade in the number of kids scoring at the highest levels.
By Gail Robinson on September 25, 2006, 12:05 pmIn category: Albany, Education, Gotham City | 4 Comments »


September 25th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I’ll bet that middle schools get the worst teachers.
Why? Because it’s the toughest job. It requires more subject matter knowledge than elementary school, and more class control ability than high school. And in some ways, the job is less fulfilling than either. But it is essential.
In a fair world, middle school teachers would be paid more.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Its been almost 40 years since Jr. H.S. That is what it was called then. And I hear that the SP program has been discontinued (you spend two years instead of three, skip 8h grade basically.) I remember being very happy at the idea of spending less time in J.H.S. I dn’t remember anything I was taught in 7th grade. And it felt like the teachers didn’t know either. And then there was the social pressure that arised from puberty. The confusion of what was happening to your body. Fear maybe, so you form clicks for support. (Anthropologists see this in social primates, at pre-adoloscent ages they form groups.)
So it becomes the hell with grades are you in the in crowd or out. Someone the pretty girls admired or a nerd. Not a very good environment to want to go to everyday. Also there was the universal definition of being what qualifies you to be in the in crowd. Guys and girls who didn’t excel in class no matter how well they looked were in. Looks social status counted, being the first in school with the lastest fad counted as much. Nerd, someone who did well in class were the rejects. The kids the in-crowd loved to sit next to class to cheat off, help -blink-blink smile, tease, get help with papers. I swear one of the girls who sat next to me in 9th grade science received the honor as being a Playboy Center fold as soon as she was of legal age. And boy did she cheat off me in Science class.
My friends with kids in what is now middle school says it hasn’t changed. So perhaps the middle school teachers should have take an extra course in puberty, how to take advantage of it, control it, before they start to teach middle school. It’s not just a phase you go through. Ask almost anyone and they remember those years. It helped form their attitude in latter years. Maybe why those scores go down. Just a thought.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Just a slight correction to Allen Salzberg’s date about the beginnings of the junior high system. I was graduated from Boody Junior High School SP system in 1935. I have only fond memories of both clever students and gifted teachers.
October 4th, 2006 at 7:48 am
here it is