Despite persistent alarm bell-ringing over the implementation of tough new standards, city students made considerable gains in math – and smaller gains in reading – on the state’s challenging 2014 Common Core exams, new results show.
Proficiency rates for city kids in grade three to eight rose by 4.4 percentage points in math — from 30.1 to 34.5 percent — and by 2 percentange points in reading, from 27.4 to 29.4 percent.
City kids also gained ground on their peers in the rest of the state, where overall proficiency rates edged up only slightly since last year, to 35.8 percent in math and 31.4 percent in reading.
“This is still a transition period. It will take time before the changes taking place in our classrooms are fully reflected in the test scores,” cautioned State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch. “But the growth we see is directly attributable to the dedication and determination of so many classroom teachers and school leaders across the state.”
City charter school kids made huge strides in math, gaining 8.3 percentage points to reach 42.5 percent proficiency — well above the statewide average for all kids.
Their smaller gains in reading – of 1.7 percentage points – were just below the citywide increase, and got them to a 26.9 percent proficiency rate.
This was only the second year that students across New York were exposed to more difficult exams aligned to the Common Core standards, and the first year that the local curriculum was fully aligned with the college-ready standards.
Common Core emphasizes getting students to think and analyze on deeper levels rather than just having them write personal essays or regurgitate information.
But its introduction caused so much panic among parents – and particularly among teachers, who are rated based on their students’ performance – that nervous state officials earlier this year OK’d delaying its use in high-stakes decisions for two years.
This means students weren’t held to test score-based promotion standards in the city this year, while teachers rated poorly won’t have to worry about the consequences of their evaluations until 2016.