Weak Results on National Tests Are a Wake-Up Call for Parents in New York

New York State parents, teachers and students have gotten during the past few weeks a couple of wake-up calls about the quality of education here in the Empire State .Weak results on two nationally administered tests confirmed the worst fears of critics of the State Education Department and the City Department of Education. It has become clear that boasts of academic progress are hype at best, deception at worst. Despite the nearly a decade under the mayor’s direct and total control, the education crisis has deepened under Mr. Bloomberg.These “wake-up calls” are akin to canaries in a coalmine, warning us of danger, but, alas, the canaries themselves lose their lives. Here the children taking the tests live to see another day, but their one chance at an adequate education may be lost forever.These tests are particularly important because they are administered not by the city or state, but by third parties with nothing to gain or lose by the results. This gives them a lot more credibility.On one of the tests, the SAT tests given to college-bound students, the results follow a national pattern of stagnation or slight decline. This year the composite score of the verbal, math and writing test for students in the city is 1327, a slight decline from the previous year. This compares to a composite score of 1460 for students throughout the state, and 1500 nationally.Scores declined slightly across the nation, but the city’s performance, so far below the national average, is especially distressing. After so many years of being told of the “miracle” educational advances being achieved under Mayor Bloomberg, we wake up to find that there has been no gain at all putting into question all those claims of soaring graduation rates.SAT scores are not the only problem. Academic underperformance on those tests is mirrored on the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress test administered by the federal government. While we don’t have results for the city disaggregated yet, the total state results were, to say the least, troubling. Alone among the 50 states and District of Columbia, New York suffered an actual decline in math scores for fourth graders.How could this be?It’s hard to draw conclusions about what the truth is, but the results of no tests in New York State were more inflated than the scores in math. In 2009, Dr. Betty Rosa, who represents the Bronx on the state board of regents, warned that math results that year were inflated, and suggested that the suspect results not be released. But no one made an issue of the mayor’s failure during the election.Arguably, no subject demands accurate results more than math. Once students fall behind, it becomes increasing difficult to catch up. With so many students falling behind even as they were told that all is well, their teachers had no reason to offer them the remediation they so clearly needed.So when, in July 2010, the state education commissioner, David Steiner, finally disclosed the extent of the grade inflation problem on the state’s own tests, he was only giving the preface to the sad story that followed.The greatest responsibility of a school system to its parents is an honest and true assessment of what their child knows, and what he doesn’t. I believe that the bad news of recent days is the direct consequence of failed, even deceptive policies of our politicians and educrats.

Weak Results on National Tests Are a Wake-Up Call for Parents in New York

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