Data reflects 2015-16 state testing results
By Sarah Hall
Editor
The North Syracuse Central School District’s students are generally performing well on standardized tests, according to the New York State Report Card issued by the New York State Education Department.
The district issued a summary of the data included in the report card last week, reflecting scores for the 2015-16 school year’s standardized tests for English/Language Arts (ELA), mathematics, science and 14 different Regents exams.
According to the district’s newsletter, the District Dispatch, “New York State Report Cards provide comprehensive data for all districts in the state, including enrollment, demographic, attendance, assessment, accountability, graduation rate and much more.” That data is then used to determine where the district needs to shore up its programming to better provide for students.
“That’s what we’re here for—to help students achieve,” said Donna Marie Norton, testing coordinator for the district. “That’s what we’re all about. The New York State Education Department puts out curriculum standards in each of the areas. … They’re constantly revamping the standards and we have to provide professional development for our teachers so that they keep up with those standards and they know what the students are supposed to be responsible for.”
That’s what professional development days and superintendent’s conference days are for, she said.
“Parents frequently call and ask, ‘Why is my kid off from school?’” she said. “Well, the teachers are not off. We bring them in and we do a lot of training and discussion and conversation and development of classroom materials. We dissect the standards in the curriculum so that we know what we’re teaching is aligned correctly.”
Nor do teachers solely rely on standardized testing.
“We formatively assess students throughout the year,” Norton said. “I help teachers on a whole bunch of workshops in the summer and throughout the year with teachers to make sure that they know all the different methodologies they can use to formatively assess students, diagnosing them where they are, how well they know the standards and what we need to do in the future with them.”
That said, the standardized tests provide a baseline for the district to determine where it needs to provide additional supports. That’s where the state report card data comes in. Below is a breakdown of that data.
Elementary level testing
Elementary level testingNearly all of North Syracuse’s six elementary schools met the annual measurable objective (AMO), the target score set by the state. If a school or subgroup within that school fails to meets the AMO, they do not meet the standard for Adequate Yearly Progress. If they do meet that standard, they are said to be “In Good Standing.”
In the ELA exams, Allen Road, KWS Bear Road, Cicero, Lakeshore Road and Smith Road elementary schools all met the Adequate Yearly Progress standard. Roxboro Road Elementary failed to do so. However, all still received the “In Good Standing” designation.
“For many schools this is the first time, in a particular subgroup [that they haven’t met the standard],” Norton said. “So we hope that they did well this spring, and that we won’t be in that subgroup performing lower again the next year.”
In terms of subgroups, at Bear Road and Lakeshore Road, the Students with Disabilities subgroup failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress. At Roxboro Road, in addition to the school as a whole, the White Student and Economically Disadvantaged Student subgroups fell short of the standard.
The same subgroups missed the Adequate Yearly Progress mark at Roxboro in the math exams for 2015-16. Roxboro as a whole did not make the standard, but it still achieved Good Standing. The remaining elementary schools also achieved Good Standing as well as the Adequate Yearly Progress mark. Of those, again, Bear Road and Lakeshore Road’s Students with Disabilities subgroups did not achieve the Adequate Yearly Progress mark.
Fourth-graders also sat for science exams; in that category, students at all six schools met the Adequate Yearly Progress standard.
Middle level testing
Gillette Road Middle School was the only middle-level institution to meet the AMO in the ELA exams. But North Syracuse, while it fell short of the AMO, still achieved Good Standing. At both schools, the Economically Disadvantaged and Students with Disabilities subgroups failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress standard.
Roxboro Road, however, is on a Local Assistance Plan. Here, not only did all students fail to meet the standard, so did the following subgroups: Economically Disadvantaged, Students with Disabilities, White Students and Hispanic Students.
“In order to get into that status you have to perform lower than the state standard, which is D and lower, for two consecutive years in a row, in the same subgroup,” Norton said.
According to NYSED, schools on a Local Assistance Plan have large gaps in student achievement among subgroups and is among the lowest performing for one or more subgroups not showing progress. Districts must develop a plan in cooperation with staff and parents that identifies those schools and describes how the district will support the improvement of those schools. Roxboro is currently on that plan and working to improve its ELA scores.
When it comes to math, the picture is a little better; all three schools are designated as In Good Standing, though Roxboro failed to meet the AMO. NSJHS and Roxboro’s Economically Disadvantaged and Students with Disabilities subgroups missed the Adequate Yearly Progress mark, as did RRMS’s Multiracial, White and Hispanic subgroups.
Finally, eighth graders at NSJHS took the science exam; the school failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress, as did its White, Students with Disabilities and Economically Disadvantaged subgroups.
Regents exams
Regents scores have remained relatively steady since 2013, though changes in testing have produced results that could appear misleading. For example, in 2015 77 percent of students passed the geometry Regents, while only 39 percent did in 2016. Norton said it’s not because vast numbers of students failed, but because most students instead took the new Common Core Geometry exam (which has a 61 percent passing rate).
“The old exam was just called geometry, so the only students taking it are the students that had already failed it,” she said. “Because they’re still in that cohort where they can use the old geometry to graduate high school. Any students that are on track would’ve taken the Common Core geometry exam, so on that we’ve seen a nice increase.”
Opt-outs skewing results
While the report card provides something of a baseline for the district, Norton said the statistics aren’t as useful as they could be.
“We were above 30 percent of the students refusing the exam,” she said. “It’s hard to use these numbers to make plans in the district when a third of the students aren’t even considered in here.”
Norton said lacking that much data makes it much more difficult to determine any deficiencies in the district’s programming.
“It makes it difficult to diagnose a program,” she said. “I would love to be able to say, based on these standardized test results that we need professional development in particular areas but it’s not accurate because I’m missing a third of the kids.”
She said the district is instead relying on in-house exams and portfolios, as well as Regents exams at the higher levels. She said while some parents do seem very well-informed and passionate about standardized testing, others seem to be exempting their children without considering the ramifications.
“We see more refusals for the second set of exams, which is math, than we did with for the first set,” Norton said. “I think when students see that other students aren’t taking the exam, they go home they tell their parents and then they come back in and don’t take the math. I would love to say that most parents really understand standardized testing and are making an informed decision. I have seen the notes that come in from parents to the school and I think there are many that aren’t really as aware of what standardized testing is.”
For Liverpool’s report card data, see next week’s edition of the Star-Review.
