About 20 percent of New York students refused to take spring tests

New York students made very slight gains on state English language arts and math exams this year, according to new data released by the state education department on Wednesday.

In 2015, 35.2 percent of students met proficiency standards in math, up from 34.2 percent last year, while 30.4 percent of students met the standards in English, up from 28.4 percent last year.

The percentage of students at proficiency in 2015 was 38.1 percent compared to 36.2 in 2014 and 31.1 in 2013.

De Blasio and Fariña have repeatedly said they do not think standardized test performance should be the sole indicator of a student’s achievement, or the primary means of assessing academics in city schools overall.

Approximately 200,000 students statewide boycotted the exams this year and works out to be about 20 percent of eligible test takers.

While the teachers union slammed the tests, Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said the assessments are important in preparing students for college and their future careers.

The district’s tests for English language arts in grades seven and eight have been invalidated because of an unspecified testing security issue and those grades are not listed in the state testing report.

See more city-specific data here, and the statewide data here.

Elia says despite the problems, she remains committed to higher standards – but she is conducting a comprehensive review of the Common Core standards and how New York handled their implementation.

Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said, “These new standards raised the expectation for learning in Missouri”.

At the same time, however, “We also can say this is the universal measure in this state”, he said of the exams.

Elia said that federal government officials are looking at the possibility of withholding millions of dollars in federal aid to school districts that abet student opt-out from testing. About 47 percent of fifth-graders scored proficient or advanced this year, down from 48 percent last year.

DOE spokesman Harry Hartfield confirmed that the opt-out numbers were much lower in New York City-2% of all students opted out of one or both of the tests, up from 1% in 2014 (5,750 didn’t take English, and 7,502 skipped math). Some statisticians counter that the computer models used to create growth scores for teachers are too unreliable to use this way.

In Chappaqua, another high-achieving district, with a comparatively low 4 percent opt out rate, the percentage of students proficient in English went down from 70 to 66 percent.

Rather than compare the first-year MAP scores to scores on the field test, Shuls said there are more accurate ways to use the results, such as measuring the improvement that students have shown from one year to the next.

At the same time, the number of local students who refused to take the tests skyrocketed from 2014. The state is on its third set of teacher evaluations in five years amid pushback from schools, teachers and parents.

“It’s clear to me that we must do a better job of supporting our teachers and principals as they continue to shift their practice to the higher learning standards”, she said. If the algebra students were included in the total score, she said it would be 40.8 percent.

“We use a standardized tests process to help ensure that we are meeting the needs of all Missouri students”.