Riverhead public school students slipped a little lower in the annual state assessment tests, according to results released this week by the State Education Department.
Overall, of the Riverhead students in grades 3 to 8 who took the tests, less than 20 percent demonstrated proficiency in English Language Arts and less than 24 percent demonstrated proficiency in math, according to NYSED data. That is lower than the statewide averages of 31 percent ELA proficiency and 38 percent math proficiency.
The tests were administered this spring amidst growing controversy over “high-stakes” testing, its role in teacher evaluations and the implementation of the Common Core Curriculum in New York State.
The national opt-out movement, which grew in protest to the power wielded by corporate providers of education assessment tests, took root in Riverhead and across Long Island. Locally, nearly 30 percent of students refused to take the tests. The opt-out number statewide was just 20 percent, the state education department said in a press release.
The high student refusal rate is just one reason the results are “truly misleading,” Riverhead Schools Superintendent Nancy Carney said today.
The results do not reflect the growth students achieve over the course of a year, she said, especially where students with limited English proficiency are concerned.
“Almost 100 percent of our students with limited English proficiency and our students with disabilities did not meet the proficiency level,” Carney said. “The state assessments do not measure the growth these students achieve. The growth is clearly evident in student work and teacher-generated assessments that measure what has been learned.”
Data from one assessment test are not valid to determine overall student achievement, Carney said.
“Multiple measures of different types of assessment are how we get a clear picture of student performance,” she said.
That’s one of the main complaints about what critics call “high-stakes” testing, the once-a-year tests now required for students in grades 3 through 8, which are used by the state to measure student achievement, rate school performance and now evaluate teacher “effectiveness.”
The test results don’t reflect the amount of effort teachers and students put into learning all year, or a student’s growth during the year, Riverhead Central Faculty Association president Lisa Goulding said.
But Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Board of Regents and the State Education Department say the tests are a necessary tool for education reform.
“Our tests have been nationally recognized for providing the most honest look at how prepared our students are for future success, and we believe annual assessments are essential to ensure all students make educational progress and graduate college- and career-ready,” Chancellor of the N.Y. State Board of Regents Dr. Meryl Tisch said in a press release issued Wednesday. “Without an annual testing program, the progress of our neediest students may be ignored or forgotten, leaving these students to fall further behind. This cannot happen.”
The structure and content of the tests are themselves a source of controversy. After a series of errors in the tests were exposed, the State Education Department last month announced the vendor that prepared and graded the state tests, Pearson PLC, would be replaced by Questar Assessment Inc. which was awarded a five-year, $44 million contract. The move was hailed by the state’s largest teachers union.
“It, perhaps, signals that the State Education Department is beginning to listen to parents and teachers at the grassroots level who are concerned about over-testing, the length and difficulty of state tests, and the age- and developmental-appropriateness of standardized tests,” N.Y. State United Teachers vice president Catalina Fortino said in a press release last month.
“In concert with parents, we will continue to press for appropriate tests that measure what students know and are then used to improve teaching and learning,” she said.
That’s not how it works now, RCFA’s Goulding said today. Test results beyond scores are not shared with teachers and students. “We’re not going to get any information to help us better instruct students and that’s the purpose of assessments,” she said. “As a teacher, you don’t really know what they got wrong. We can’t say, OK they missed this or that, and go back and help them learn. It’s very frustrating.”
It’s also disheartening, Goulding said, for both teacher and student.
“When they see the score and find out they got a 1 [the lowest proficiency level] they know it’s not reflective of their efforts and it’s not on grade-level— in some cases the material is a couple of grades above their current grade level — it can be very discouraging,” Goulding said.
In Riverhead, 48 percent of students scored at level 1 in ELA and 46 percent scored at level 1 in math.
The percentage of students scoring at levels 3 and 4 — what the SED says is necessary to graduate “college- and career-ready” — dropped precipitously in 2013, the first year to measure the Common Core learning standards adopted by the Regents in 2010.
The SED says the new standards are more accurate measures of student preparedness and created “a new baseline” of student learning, former education commissioner John King said in 2013. The “new baseline” in Riverhead was a full 20 to 30 percent lower — prompting parents and teachers to complain that New York’s education reform was setting kids up to fail.
Districts like Riverhead, where the student population has significant numbers of students with disabilities, students living below the poverty level and students who are not native English speakers, were hit especially hard by the changes, according to officials.
The state data show that 92 percent of students identified as Black or African American (274 tested) did not meet proficiency levels, scoring at levels 1 or 2. Eighty-nine percent of students identified as Hispanic or Latino (687 tested) scored at levels 1 or 2.
Of students classified as “Limited English Proficient” (272 tested) 99 percent scored at levels 1 or 2, as Carney noted. Students with Disabilties (228 tested) had an identical result.
Riverhead’s student body is nearly 50 percent Hispanic or Latino in grades 1 through 3, and 39 percent overall in grades 1 through 12, according to data supplied by Carney.
“I am proud of the instruction and learning that is going on in our classrooms,” Carney said today.
“We will continue to work at providing all of our students with learning environments that are challenging and engaging. We are excited about the upcoming school year and I am confident that student achievement will strengthen as we move forward,” the superintendent said.
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