SPINNING SCORES
By DIANE RAVITCH, New York POST
June 9, 2004

WHEN Mayor Bloomberg took control of the city's public schools in 2002, he pledged that school reform would be his highest priority.

In business, the bottom line is profits. In education, the bottom line is test scores. Last week, the first test scores of the new era were released. To put it charitably, they were a mixed bag:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,

For More Information, Contact:
Tom Dunn or Jonathan Burman, at (518) 474-1201
Internet: http://www.nysed.gov

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH SCORES FALL, MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH SCORES RISE

After rising since 1999, student achievement in elementary English declined for the first time this year, according to fourth grade test scores released today.

Middle school English scores rose, according to eighth grade test results.

However, elementary schools overall held onto previous gains made in reducing the percentage of students with serious academic difficulties (scoring in level 1), and middle schools continued to reduce the number of children scoring in level 1.

More than 62 percent of fourth graders met all the State standards by scoring in levels 3 and 4. That number is down from 64 percent in 2003 and up from 48 percent in 1999, the first year the test was given.

Black students declined this year more than white or Hispanic students. About 44 percent of black students met all the standards, down four percent from last year but still up from 26 percent in 1999. Almost 46 percent of Hispanic students did so, down two percent from last year but still up from 26 percent in 1999.

Middle school students made gains. The percentage of students meeting all the standards (levels 3 and 4) increased by two percentage points from the previous year, to 47 percent. But results are still slightly down from 1999, when 48 percent met all the standards. Scores for Black and Hispanic students are up slightly over 1999.

"We ultimately have to look to long-term trends over year-to-year changes," State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said. "However, the decline in elementary achievement in English is troubling. Children are still at much higher levels than in 1999. In particular, fewer children are showing serious academic difficulties by scoring in level 1. But we have to look to the reasons behind the drop this year in the number of students achieving all the standards. And we have to redouble our efforts to give more help to the children."

"Middle school results, on the other hand, are better this year. That's good news. However, the longer trend shows no net gain over 1999. The situation overall gives new urgency to the changes in middle school policy now under consideration by the Board of Regents," Commissioner Mills said.

For elementary and middle school English and Math tests, achievement is measured at four levels:

· Level 4 – exceeds the standards

· Level 3 – meets all the standards

· Level 2 – meets some of the standards or partially meets the standards

· Level 1 – shows serious academic difficulties.



Here are some things that middle schools should do to improve student achievement:

Reading

· Reading instruction needs to continue in the middle grades, but the instruction needs to go beyond basic reading skills to more advanced skills of interpretation and analysis.

· Students should be taught to ask relevant questions, distinguish fact from opinion, recognize assumptions and implications, understand levels of meaning beyond the literal, and recognize how literary forms and techniques convey meaning.

· Students should read at least 25 books per year of increasingly sophisticated content and literary quality though the middle years.

· Reading should include fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, historical documents, and scientific journals.

· Middle grade students need to develop strategies for reading in all the subjects they study. (Move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn.")

· In every middle grade classroom where reading is required, reading strategies for that subject should be taught simultaneously with the content of the subject.

Writing
· Daily writing in all academic subjects is necessary to insure deep learning in those subjects.

· Middle level writing experiences should provide foundation skills for high school writing demands: research studies, literary analyses, thesis and support papers.

· Consistent expectations for writing quality (e.g., spelling, punctuation, and agreement of subject and verb, control of verb tenses) should be in place in all subjects. Proofreading, editing, and revision should be expected.

· Students should write for analysis and interpretation, as well as basic understanding.

Slides used in the press conference.

On the most important evaluation of the Bloomberg reforms, the state test of fourth-grade reading, the results were bad. That should give Chancellor Joel Klein reasons to reconsider some of his decisions, but he decided instead to ignore the bad news and declare victory.

Klein's most controversial decision was his choice of what he calls a "standard curriculum" in reading and mathematics in January 2003. Actually, the chancellor mandated a single way of teaching. There is no standard curriculum. A curriculum describes not how teachers teach, but what they teach.

Critics complained bitterly about both choices, which were actually made by Deputy Chancellor Diana Lam, who has since been ousted. Lam called the reading program "balanced literacy," but critics said that it was similar to the dubious "whole language" philosophy of reading that has been discredited elsewhere. The math program is equally controversial, and its critics call it "fuzzy math."

In schools of education, both techniques are called "constructivist" because traditional instruction is minimized, and students are encouraged to "construct" their own knowledge.

To prove the critics wrong, the city Department of Education has pumped more than $100 million into professional development, especially to support its new reading program in the early grades. Teachers were given a script to follow, almost minute by minute, to make sure the new reading program was implemented. Teachers' compliance with these orders was rigorously enforced by a cadre of "coaches" reporting not to principals but to agents of the chancellor. Test preparation became an important part of the school day.

The key measure of all this activity, everyone understood, would be the state's fourth grade reading assessment.

When city officials saw the state results a few days before their public release last week, there were a few panicky moments at Tweed Hall, the lavish home of the Department of Education: Alarmingly, the reading scores in fourth grade had dropped.

After an intensive year of mandates, micromanagement, and professional development, the percentage of fourth-grade students who met the state standards had fallen from 52.4 percent to 49.6 percent. The chancellor's model school, PS 172 in Brooklyn (to which he has been directing reporters for more than a year), saw a 6 percent drop. Another showcase school for his mandated methods - PS 126 in Manhattan - saw a 32 percent decrease in the percentage of students meeting standards.

The citywide decline in reading was the first since 1999 and ended an era of regular gains. Another city agency might be able to brush off the drop as a normal fluctuation in services, but Tweed had invested its prestige in selling its curriculum overhaul as a revolutionary change. It had made extravagant claims about the success of its new reading program. It had disparaged critics as ignorant ideologues. Now what to do?

Some public-relations adviser apparently came up with this: Confuse the public and the press with a data dump. Release the city's own test scores in reading and mathematics for grades 3, 5, 6 and 7, most of which were positive, on the same day as the embarrassing state reading scores. The sheer quantity of information would bury the state scores and allow Tweed to put a happy face on what would otherwise be a humiliating day.

So, last Thursday, the department issued a press release announcing "New York City Students Show Significant Gains in Mathematics Exams This Year with Three of the Four Tested Grades Showing Gains of Six Percentage Points or More." Klein appeared on local news shows to boast about the great results on the city tests while minimizing the decline in fourth-grade reading.

The members of the local press understood that this was a shell game, and they didn't bite. Every story in the print media the next day led with a description of the decline on the fourth-grade state tests of reading.

On the city's own tests, where there were gains in mathematics, no one noted that the tests were devised and administered by the same company from which the city buys its math program. We will know more about the significance of these math gains when the state releases test scores for mathematics in fourth and eighth grades in the near future.

No fair person would judge the mayor's initiatives based solely on the first-year results. On the other hand, the chancellor and his public relations staff leapt to claim credit for "significant gains," "real and significant progress" and "record achievement levels" based on the city's own tests. They can't have it both ways.

One-year changes are either significant or they're not. If they are, then the city can crow about the victories on its own tests - but it then has to worry about the setback on the state's fourth-grade test. If they are not significant, then the city should stop issuing self-praising press releases about its accomplishments and wait until next year to claim success.

New Yorkers have learned an important lesson about the Department of Education this past week: Don't believe its press releases. Read the fine print. Watch for the results of the state tests in mathematics.

Diane Ravitch is research professor of Education at New York University and a member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution.