Schools

2009-10 NYS District Report Card: Pearl River

Shift in scoring causes lower scores for schools throughout New York

The New York State Education Department released the 2009-10 New York State District Report Cards Thursday, but the numbers are not news to local districts and they may be misleading.

The state changed the grading standards for its grade-level exams after the tests had been taken, so overall the scores were lower than before.

According to NYS senior deputy commissioner for P-12 education, John King, “These newly defined cut scores do not mean that students who were previously scoring at the proficient standard and are now labeled Basic have learned less. Rather, the lower number of students meeting the proficient standard reflects that we are setting the bar higher and we expect students, teachers, and parents to reach even higher to achieve these new targets.”

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There are four levels students may score at:

  • Level 1: not meeting learning standards
  • Level 2: partially meeting learning standards
  • Level 3: Meeting learning standards
  • Level 4: Meeting learning standards with distinction

These distinctions are nothing new. What changed is the standards for each level were raised.

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"The grade level tests, what happened last year was the state recalibrated what they consider acceptable scores for each of the four grades," said Pearl River Director of Quality and Public Relations Sandra Cokeley. "They raised the standards. So across the state, we had significant drops in the percentage of students scoring at threes and fours."

Pearl River's scores, graduation rates, Regents results and other information can be found here. There are reports for the district as a whole and each individual school. The number of students at Levels 3 and 4 did drop, but the drop was not as drastic as the rest of the state.

Cokeley provided the following chart which illustrates the change at Pearl River Middle School in relation to the change overall in New York State.

Assessment

PRMS 2009-10
Level 3 & 4

Change from 2008-09

 

NYS 2009-10

Level 3 & 4

Change from 2008-09

Grade 5 ELA

73%

-20 points

52%

-30 points

Grade 6 ELA

83%

-13 points

54%

-27 points

Grade 7 ELA

73%

-18 points

50%

-30 points

Grade 5 Math

90%

-9 points

65%

-23 points

Grade 6 Math

92%

-6 points

61%

-22 points

Grade 7 Math

90%

-8 points

62%

-25 points

Cokeley said the utility of this information is limited by the state's plans to change these exams for next year,

"They changed the scoring for this one year, but it’s kind of a moot point because it doesn’t serve well as predictor for next year," Cokeley said. "Next year the assessments will be different different. "What you use these for is to look at areas in curriculum or instruction you need to strengthen. We look at the data pretty intently."

Though the information is new to the general public, Pearl River has had this information for months and shared it with parents in the district. More information can be found on the district website under assessments

"By the time this hits the news media, it is ancient for us," Cokeley said. "We dissected the Regents results over the summer.

"The scoring change kind of threw us a curve. Prior to that, we were focusing on literacy and vocabulary. Our math scores have always been very strong, but our ELA in certain areas were inconsistent, particularly seventh and eighth grades. We did some intense work there and we started to see the numbers increase over the four previous years."

Pearl River's overall results on the Regents improved in Comprehensive English, Integrated Algebra, Global History and Geography, Living Environment, Physical Setting/Earth Science, Physical Setting/Chemsitry and Physical Setting/Physics while dropping in Geometry and holding steady in U.S. History and Government.

Regents have been a priority for Pearl River since the 1990s and the district began requiring students to pass them to graduate before the state did. In 2010, 98 percent of Pearl River graduates received a Regents Diplona and 68 percent received a Regents Diploma with Advanced Distinction. Pearl River High School's graduation rate is near 100 pecent, with only one student dropping out last year.

"That was one thing we focused on, increasing percentage of kids who got a regents diploma," Cokely said. "We discoverd that the ones who had regents diploma were four times more likely to be successful in college."

According to the state report, Pearl River students are in good standing in Languaage Arts, Mathematics and Science at the elementary, middle school and high school levels.

"The state tests are important because we are accountable to them, but they are one of many different measures we use," Cokeley said. "We don’t use only those tests as the sole evaluations of our programs here. We give other tests. We look at SAT scores, final exam grades, grade point average, comparitive analysis of final exam grades to Regents exams. It is a very complx system we use."


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