New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. submitted testimony today at a hearing of the New York City Council Committee on Education regarding oversight of the Department of Education’s (DOE) Progress Reports.

Over the past few months, Thompson has released a series of audits regarding the DOE’s monitoring of standardized tests, tracking of graduation requirements, oversight of early grade class size, and administration of the Reading First Program. To read about these audits, visit www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

Comptroller Thompson’s Testimony:

Good morning, Committee Chair Jackson and honorable members of the Education Committee.

I appear before you today to express my deep concerns regarding the accuracy, the meaning, and the educational consequences of the New York City Department of Education’s School Progress Reports.

Just last month, the DOE released progress reports for the 2008-2009 school year.  Incredibly, 97 percent of our city’s schools received an A or a B grade.  Does anyone truly believe that practically every school in our city deserves an “A” or a “B”?

Of course not.

The main reason why this year’s letter grades are grossly inflated is that DOE  based them overwhelmingly on scores on the State’s standardized math and English Language Arts, or ELA, exams. 

Eighty-five percent of the Progress Report letter grade is determined by the results of these tests. For a number of reasons, these results should not serve as the basis for any sort of school letter grade system.

First, the massive increases in State test pass rates in recent years defy credulity. 

Last spring, the State reported that nearly 85 percent of 4th graders in New York City were suddenly proficient in math according to the results of the 2009 State exams.

The State added that from 2006 to 2009, New York City’s math test pass rate for grades 3 through 8 jumped from 57 percent to nearly 82 percent – an increase of 25 points.

For the same time period, the math test pass rate in Buffalo climbed from 29 percent to over 63 percent – an increase of over 34 points.

Is there a single educator who believes that this increase had any correlation at all to actual increases in student academic proficiency?  If it did, we would all be discussing how to replicate the “Buffalo miracle.”

During the same period, Rochester saw a 31.4 point pass rate increase and Syracuse’s pass rate rose 28.1 points – both exceeding New York City’s 25-point increase.  

Similar increases were seen on State’s ELA tests.

Educational testing experts will tell you that it is highly implausible for any district to achieve pass rate increases of ten percentage points or more in a single year – as occurred on the ELA tests in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers and New York City from 2008 to 2009 – and for scores to keep on increasing, year after year.

This is simply magical thinking.

So what’s happening? This brings me to my second point, which is that test scores soared in part because grading of the State tests has become easier. 

As the New York Times has reported, whereas three years ago 7th graders in New York were required to answer 60 percent of questions correctly to receive a passing grade on the State math exam, for the most recent test, the threshold to pass was lowered to 44 percent. The threshold was lowered in every other grade as well.

While the resulting 86 percent pass rate statewide on the math tests may seem impressive, the improved scores clearly reflect scoring gimmicks rather than improved performance.

The suggestion that State test grading has gotten easier is also supported by the fact that virtually no students scored at Level 1 in 2009. 

It has been noted, for example, that out of about 70,000 6th graders who took the ELA test this year, a mere two-tenths of a percent scored at Level 1 – that’s two out of every one thousand students.

That’s amazing. Back in 2005, the Education Department trumpeted a 12.5 percent ELA Level 1 rate as a major accomplishment.  

In an appalling revelation, the New York Daily News reported this summer that it was possible to score a Level 2 on the State exams by ignoring all written questions and guessing on the multiple choice questions.

A reporter for the Gotham Schools website conducted her own experiment, using both a 6th grade ELA exam and a 7th grade math test. She scored a 2 in both cases without looking at or reading a single question or math problem.

That is truly a disgrace.

Thousands of children wrongly received Level 2 scores this year despite the fact that they cannot read or comprehend at or close to grade level.

Had they received the more appropriate Level 1 grade, these students would have been required to attend summer school. Denying students that opportunity flies in the face of the mayor’s supposed commitment to eliminating social promotion and reveals a truly breathtaking cynicism.

The third reason why the State’s standardized exams must not be so closely tied to our schools’ Progress Reports is that these tests have become entirely too predictable, enabling – and, in fact, encouraging – our teachers to teach to the test.

One expert who analyzed the State’s 4th grade math tests found that by 2009, 90 percent of the test’s points were determined by topics that appeared multiple times in four years, “often in questions virtually identical to past years.”  

Another expert found that at least 14 of 30 multiple choice questions in the 2009 7th grade math test had appeared in similar form in previous tests. She also found that only about half the math skills the State requires 7th graders to learn have ever been tested in the four years the State has administered the exam.

The release two weeks ago of state scores on the 4th and 8th grade National
Assessment of Educational Progress in math provides us with conclusive evidence that the New York State tests do not credibly measure changes in academic proficiency. 

Instead of an 87 percent pass rate for New York State fourth graders on math tests, the NAEP exams show that a paltry 40 percent met the minimum standard. In 8th grade, only 34 percent of students passed. That’s barely a third.
The NAEP tests are given every two years and are known as “the nation’s report card.” They are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and considered to be the gold standard of educational testing.

The previous NAEP exams were given in 2007. Between that year and 2009, the average score for New York State decreased by 0.8% in 4th grade, while on the State’s test the pass rate increased by 9.0%.  

The curricular content of the NAEP and the New York State assessment are similar. But because the NAEP is administered to a scientific sampling of students – designed by leading statisticians to be representative of the entire student body -- teachers do not “teach to” the NAEP. 

The NAEP exam is therefore a fairer assessment of educational progress than the State tests. It is not susceptible to manipulation by the State in terms of its difficulty or grading.

Yet DOE and this administration continue to trumpet the wildly exaggerated gains suggested by the State test results.

The stakes are too high for these publicity games.  We find ourselves in the midst of the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, with over 200,000 young men and women between the ages of 16 and 24 – most of them persons of color – who are neither in school nor employed.

The ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case required that we provide all New York City children with a sound basic education. But by attempting to game the system, the administration has sadly lowered standards instead.

The New York Times has posted an interactive online feature that permits anyone to look up the pass rate rankings of the State’s 695 school districts on the most recent ELA and math tests, as well as the State social studies and science tests.   

My office analyzed that data and discovered that even with the huge gains trumpeted by the Bloomberg administration, many of our school districts still rank at the bottom of New York State’s 695 districts.

The pass rates for nine of the city’s 32 districts ranked in the 3rd percentile or lower on the ELA exam. Five of our districts also ranked in the 3rd percentile or lower for the math test.

And while Tweed claims to have reduced the achievement gap between white students and students of color, the NAEP exams show the exact opposite.

Whereas the State exams suggest that 63 percent of black 8th graders have basic math proficiency, the NAEP tests show that number is a mere 13 percent. Where State tests suggest that 69 percent of Hispanic 8th graders have basic math proficiency, the NAEP exams show that number is 15 percent.

Barely a tenth of our African American and Latino 8th graders have the basic skills to help them succeed. That is unacceptable, and what is happening here in New York City today is educational malpractice.

There is no question that as our workplace requires greater technical and analytic skills than ever before, our challenge is not limited simply to improvements in math and English.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing consequences of using the State tests as the basis for Progress Report letter grades is that it discourages the teaching of other critical subjects. Because letter grades are based on ELA and math test results, there is a disincentive to spend class time teaching science and social studies.

The Bloomberg administration conveniently does not mention the City’s scores on the State standardized tests in science (given in grades 4 and 8) and social studies (given in grades 5 and 8).  Maybe that’s because New York City’s results have been much worse than on the ELA and math tests.

When my office averaged the New York City rankings on the New York Times website, our city was at the 18th percentile on ELA results statewide, and at the 30th percentile on math. However, in science we were at only the 7th percentile and on social studies the 9th percentile.

Even our districts that did comparatively well on ELA and math did not do nearly as well on science and social studies. This is even more disturbing when seen against results on national science tests. When the federal government tested science in 2005, two-thirds of New York City’s eighth grade students were at the lowest possible rating.

Our success as a city requires that we make a more concerted effort to teach these subjects. How will future generations compete for technology jobs, seek solutions to conflicts in our many communities, or find energy savings through green building if we do not spark our children’s interest in science and civics at an early age?

Fifty years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision struck at the fundamental unfairness of the “separate but equal” standard in education, gross disparities remain. Rather than mask these disparities with imaginary achievement gains, it’s time to get back to the basic priorities like curriculum, instruction and learning.

Those are the priorities that will open new doors of opportunity for our young people and give them hope. And those are the priorities that will help us to grow our local economy and keep us strong long into the new century.

Thank you very much.

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