A metaphorical cloud may have a silver lining, but that does not preclude it from forming an ominous funnel. Having taken a look at the silver lining, it is now appropriate to take notice of the menacing funnel which is about to touch down in our state.  A maelstrom will ensue in early September when parents open their mail from BOCES and read the (mostly bad) news about their own children.  This perspective of the 2012-13 State Assessment "stress tests" will expose those NY school districts which FAILED UNDER STRESS.

FAILED UNDER STRESS Perspective

This perspective disregards the nominal Pass/Fail demarcations of the state assessments: 50% scoring 3 or 4 to pass / 50% scoring 1 or 2 to fail.  Instead, and much more akin to those banking stress tests administered by the Federal Reserve, the FAILED UNDER STRESS distinction focuses on those hapless school districts that essentially COLLAPSED when squeezed by the "more rigorous" 8th Grade ELA & Math Assessments.

My prior disclaimer is re-issued here: no attempt is made to ascribe legitimacy, or to demonstrate the efficacy of the 2012-13 ELA & Math Assessments which, in my opinion, were a colossal mistake by NYSED. This perspective on the results of that colossal mistake is a reading of the ashes in the wake of the testing conflagration.

Unlike the former Best Passing perspective ("Silver Lining" at http://wantagh.patch.com/groups/chris-wendts-blog/p/silver-lining-dark-cloud-over-ny-public-schools blog edition)  which revealed that some districts rose up above the huddled masses and showed their mettle by attaining good results despite the "bad" tests, the FAILED UNDER STRESS districts distinguished themselves as the worst performing (read: collapsing) and this outcome is more alarming than informing.  Or so it would seem.

 Data Points

·         383 school districts with 100 or more 8th graders participated in 2013 ELA & Math Assessments

·         71 districts, one out of every ten in the state, representing 55,000 students, had combined failing rates greater than or equal to 75% between their ELA & Math scores

·         The collective results of these 71 districts' students were:

o   52% Score = 1

o   35% Score = 2

o   11% Score = 3 (On-Grade-Level)

o   02% Score = 4 (Above Grade Level)

o   87% Scored below grade level (1 or 2), most scoring far below grade level (1)

·          Three of the ten worst-performing districts in the State are on Long Island (see below)

·         All five (5) of the Big Five Cities have school districts among the worst Failed Under Stress Districts, including:

o   New York City

§  8 districts in Brooklyn (Kings County)

§  6 districts in The Bronx

§  3 districts in Manhattan (New York County)

§  1 district in Queens

§  0 districts on Staten Island (Richmond County)

o   The Buffalo City School District

o   The Rochester City School District

o   The Syracuse City School District

o   The Yonkers City School District

·         Three other counties each have 3 or 4 districts which Failed Under Stress:

o   Orange = 4 districts

o   Albany = 3 districts

o   Sullivan = 3 districts

·         6 Counties each have 2 districts which failed under stress and 18 other counties each have one district which failed under stress.

·         34 of New York State's 62 counties (55%) have school districts which Failed Under Stress.

·         Bottom 25 Worst-Performing School Districts, 2012-13 8th Grade ELA & Math Assessments (worst performance ranking on top):

  1. FALLSBURG CENTRAL…...(98.1% Failure Rate)
  2. HUDSON CITY………….......(97.7% Failure Rate)
  3. ROOSEVELT ………………..(97.0% Failure Rate)
  4. SYRACUSE CITY …………...(96.8% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  5. POUGHKEEPSIE CITY…...(96.6% Failure Rate)
  6. ROCHESTER CITY………....(96.5% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  7. MOUNT VERNON…….....…(96.4% Failure Rate)
  8. WYANDANCH………….….(96.2% Failure Rate)
  9. DOVER…………...…………….(95.4% Failure Rate)
  10. HEMPSTEAD…………..……(94.4% Failure Rate)
  11. SCHENECTADY……..……..(94.3% Failure Rate)
  12. BROOKLYN DIST 16…..…(94.3% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  13. AMSTERDAM CITY…....….(94.2% Failure Rate)
  14. COHOES CITY………..…….(94.2% Failure Rate)
  15. AMITYVILLE……………….(94.0% Failure Rate)
  16. ELLENVILLE……………..….(93.8% Failure Rate)
  17. CENTRAL ISLIP.………..(93.5% Failure Rate)
  18. SALMON RIVER……...……(93.2% Failure Rate)
  19. BUFFALO CITY……..……..(93.2% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  20. PORT JERVIS CITY….…..(92.7% Failure Rate)
  21. DUNKIRK CITY………..…..(92.0% Failure Rate)
  22. BRONX DISTRICT 7..……(92.0% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  23. YONKERS CITY………...….(91.9% Failure Rate) 'Big Five' City
  24. MONTICELLO……....……..(91.8% Failure Rate)
  25. NIAGARA FALLS..........…(91.7% Failure Rate)

·         There are 8 other districts with failure rates of 90% or worse, for a total of 33 districts with less than ten percent of their 8th graders rated "on-grade-level" by the 2013 ELA & Math assessments.

·         Districts with fewer than 100 eighth grade assessment scores reported, and all out-of-district placement students have been suppressed from the data

·         Wantagh out-performed the "Failed Under Stress" districts but still reported a combined failure rate greater than 50% on the 8th Grade ELA & Math assessments

·         Seaford ranked #62 among districts reporting the "Best Passing" rates in the state.

These data (both of my blogs: "Silver Lining" and "Funnel Cloud") could be good news for NYSED, if they chose to employ them efficaciously.   Instead of their usual "throw out the baby with the bath water" approach to education problem solving, NYSED should focus intensely on the 71 districts which Failed Under Stress (75% or worse combined ELA & Math failure rates), clone the best practices of the 102 "Best Passing" districts, and leave the rest of us alone.

The school boards and administrators of Seaford, Wantagh, Levittown, Island Trees, the Bellmores & Merricks, Massapequa, Plainedge, Bethpage, and East Meadow should all be focused on enriching and expanding our science, technology, math, and language programs, and upgrading our educational technology.  Instead, the leadership of all these districts will be buried under mountains of unnecessary remediation of non-problems precipitated fraudulently by these bogus 2012-13 assessments.  Instead of getting parents and students excited about new and interesting and relevant programs and courses, our school districts leadership will be wrestling with militant parent groups who will be justifiably up in arms over bad results from bad tests, and working hard to grow the membership and participation in the assessment "opt-out" movement, causing even bigger problems next year and thereafter, as some districts will doubtless NOT make the mandated assessment participation rates, nor attain the mandated AYP going forward.  I mean, unless the opt-out movement succeeds in killing these fraudulent assessments altogether.

Last year I was vocally opposed to the opt-out movement, feeling it was anarchistic (it was and still is), and detrimental to many students who would have been identified as needing remedial or supportive services (it was).  However, these 2012-13 assessments were infinitely worse for so many children as to outweigh any potential risk of loss of services.  Next year, these assessments should be boycotted en masse, unless there is a new Commissioner of Education in Albany, and this year's assessment scores have been normalized on the permanent records of our students, our teachers, our schools, and districts.

There should be no further assessments based on the Common Core until PARCC (http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc) releases them in 2014-15, with plenty of information and preparation for our teachers, as promised back in 2012.  Then, in 2015, the real standards should be set for scoring the new assessments, also as promised.  The fact that the promised reasonable schedule for releasing Common Core Assessments, preceded by meaningful information and teacher preparation, followed by real standard setting…was chucked by Commissioner King, in my opinion smacks of potential fraud and possible conflict of interest at the highest levels of the NY Educational bureaucracy.

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