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Which States Have World-Class Standards and Which Do Not
New York gets a C+.
8th grade standards in reading are declining, which makes sense, I think. I remember reading a while back that 8th grade standards were the only "hard" standards, which I know is the case here in New York. The former assistant superintendent told parents that the reason our 8th graders weren't doing well on the 8th grade ELA test was that the test was "unnecessarily difficult."
You can probably see the 8th grade jump in difficulty for the top states here. The 4th grade tests get lower grades than the 8th grade tests.
Prior to NCLB being enacted, states were required to test students in the 4th & 8th grades. There were no penalties for students failing these tests, which were strictly informational.
I assume that once NCLB was passed states in some way "kept" their old 4th and 8th grade tests, while writing new tests for the rest of the grades. The problem was that NCLB testing was high stakes; there were consequences attached.
So the 8th grade tests are being brought in line with the easier NCLB-era tests.
That's my suspicion, at any rate.
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I was surprised to read that some New York politicians seemed to agree that state standards were declining.
Several possible mayoral candidates expressed doubt about the test scores.
"I don't believe in any of the state tests," Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who is a likely candidate for mayor in 2009, told the Sun.
The city's public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, said the scores raise questions. "If New York City is making such a big jump on our performance on state tests, why do our scores on the NAEP test — this nation's gold standard test — remain flat?" she asked. "And why did so many other cities in the state, including traditionally low-performing ones like Buffalo and Rochester, see similar dramatic increases?"
On Tests, Charter Schools Outperform Districts
Of course, this was in the context of a story about how the majority of charter schools are outperforming other schools in their districts.
I’ve never heard a peep from our NY suburban school district about low state standards, and I don’t expect I will. They love to tout our high 4th grade scores, and they hasten to remind us that the 8th grade slump has been improving.
In my area - rural plus commuting suburb for blue-collar & others who like the 'country', the reasons are a little clearer -
* the safe schools act is actually enforced for everyone
* more work is being done during the school day (partially b/c of reason #1, partially b/c the depts. that failed AYP the first few years had their priorities reordered and belief system restructured
* in m.s., Academic Intervention is available to catch up the unclassified students who were allowed to fall behind in the elementary (this is still crazy to me; cannot beleive that RtI had to come from the outside the district in order to get a unclassified child who failed a unit some reteaching)
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