Sadly, I must give Schools Chancellor David Banks and his press office a solid F in both critical thinking and truth in advertising for their characterization of the results of last spring’s administration of the state’s English language arts and mathematics exams as “extremely encouraging.”
They further claim that in their first year in office, “We’re seeing more of our students on grade level.”
Their own researchers are more forthcoming; every page in the PowerPoint that accompanied the chancellor’s statement is clearly labeled: “2023 Math and ELA tests are aligned to new standards. Therefore, results from 2022 and 2023 are not comparable. Any comparisons shown are for informational purposes only.”
So what is it: Are the results not comparable due to new standards and new “passing” scores or are we to be encouraged by more students being on grade level? That’s an either-or question — “both” is an unacceptable answer.
Passing it off
It is always frustrating for chancellors, and their supporters and critics, when the state changes its standards.
Everyone wants clear information on whether the test scores are up or down, but a re-scaling of the test and its proficiency levels makes that impossible, without a rigorous cross-walking of the old and new test in which a random group of students is required to take both tests. That is complicated and rarely done.
Making this year’s situation even more cloudy is the Board of Regents’ delay in releasing the statewide tests and its ongoing delay in explaining to the public exactly how the proficiency levels on the 2023 exams were set.
It will likely release those results shortly, and we will know if the observed “gains” in the city are greater than those in the rest of the state or not. Even if they are, it will still not be clear the city’s achievement levels have actually improved.
Both the city and state have been losing students, resulting in demographic shifts that might be affecting the results.
There is a slight, but only slight, glimmer of hope for the chancellor in the English Language Arts results in two districts that implemented his new phonics approach last year.
But even that is muddled; while the change was greater in these two districts than in the rest of the city as a whole, other individual districts had score changes close to those of these two districts. Let’s hope the new program does create meaningful improvement, but these scores are not evidence of that.
Achievement gap
More positive may be that the observed scores of black and Hispanic students increased by a greater percentage than those of white and Asian students. Again, a lot that is unknown is wrapped up in that, and even if the achievement “gap” between the races is decreasing, it is doing so only marginally.
For example, in ELA, the gap between Asian and black students was 34.7 percentage points in 2022 and 32.1 points in 2023. Similarly, the gap between white and Hispanic students was 30.5 points in 2022 and 30.1 in 2023.
Missing mayor
Finally, the timing of this release undermines the claims that are being made.
Mayor Adams has had a couple of serious setbacks lately, including widespread criticism of his handling of the rainstorms last week. His critics are getting emboldened, and his next election is getting closer. Yet this supposedly fantastic news is released when he is out of town, in Mexico?
We have no statement from the mayor on these scores — maybe he is seeing them more clearly than the Department of Education and wisely decided to remain silent.
I’ve studied these things for more than 40 years and even managed this type of data and its release when I was at the old Board of Education in the mid-1980s. I’m sure I made my share of mistakes, but I learned from every one of them.
If the scores on comparable tests go up next year, I’ll be the first to congratulate the chancellor and the teachers who made it happen. Until then, when asked if achievement is going up in New York City’s public schools, I’ll answer, “We just don’t know.”
Ray Domanico is director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
