Report Cards Are In

The State Department of Education has issued its first "report cards" for New York's 4,100 school districts. On the South Fork, where school officials have been touting recent increases in the number of Regents diplomas and higher test scores generally, students are performing better than in the past, but districts still have not achieved their stated goal of academic excellence.

None of the local high schools, for example, ranked among the top 20 Long Island districts identified by Newsday as having a large percentage of students achieving "mastery" on at least three of seven Regents exams. Students must score 65 or better to pass a Regents exam, but at least 85 for mastery.

Also, Amagansett, Bridgehampton, and Springs had problems with sixth-grade reading tests, with fewer than 90 percent of students attaining a minimum score set by the state below which remedial help must be provided.

Making Comparisons

The new performance reports are designed to show which schools are falling down on the job of raising academic standards, and which academic areas are in greatest need of improvement.

Much of the information is also contained in the annual State Comprehensive Assessment Reports, but the new data seeks in addition to compare each district to others that are similar in wealth, demographics, and such.

Some administrators here complained about the report cards, as has happened elsewhere in the state. Springs School Superintendent Dr. William Silver, for instance, criticized "messy statistics" that made the reports "more confusing" for parents.

Springs Reading Tests

On the other hand, he praised the report cards for including examples from elementary school tests.

Dr. Silver acknowledged that Springs has some areas, such as reading, that it needed to "look at." The district was one of 95 on Long Island to have fewer than 90 percent of students reading above the remedial level on the sixth-grade Pupil Evaluation Program test.

However, Dr. Silver noted that "in 20 different tests over a four-year period, only twice" did the district fall below 90 percent of students attaining the state minimum, which most educators acknowledge is low - about the bottom quartile.

Reiterating a longstanding objection to "mastery" scores on the third and sixth-grade P.E.P. tests, Dr. Silver stressed that they were designed to identify only which students needed remedial help.

Bridgehampton Percentages

In Bridgehampton, where the enrollment is small, Mario Medio, the acting Superintendent, explained that in sixth-grade reading, seven of eight students scored above the state minimum level. The one who fell below pushed the district's percentage below acceptable levels, to 88 percent.

"That," said Mr. Medio, "is statistically insignificant."

Mastery was a concern at the high school level. "East Hampton has come a long way, but we still have to improve two things," said District Superintendent Noel McStay. One, he said, was the school's Regents diploma rate, which was 55 percent last year, up from 53 percent in 1994-95 and 50 percent the year before.

"We also have to work on mastery," Mr. McStay acknowledged.

"We didn't know a mastery score was going to be included" on the report cards, said Chris Tracey, the high school's interim principal.

More Tutorials?

Among the standardized tests high-schoolers take, Regents are viewed as less difficult than College Board achievement tests, and far less difficult than the Advanced Placement tests, which allow students to earn college credits.

Mr. Tracey has been meeting with a committee of teachers to help identify students who, while taking Regents-level courses, are not learning at a rate that will earn them a Regents diploma.

He said he will recommend "more tutorials during the school day," and was considering setting up a "resource room for non-handicapped students" staffed with a teacher who can provide special help.

"We've raised the bar," the principal said, referring to the all-Regents curriculum the district instituted three years ago. "Now we have to help the students meet the challenge."

English Regents

In the English Regents last year, 124 East Hampton High School students, about 74 percent of those enrolled in the course, took the exam. Sixty-four percent passed, 3 percent more than the year before, but only 13 percent of those scored 85 or better.

East Hampton administrators said mastery levels also needed improvement in global studies and science Regents.

The mastery showing was better at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, where 83 percent of the 43 students taking the English Regents passed, and 37 percent scored 85 or better.

"We'd like to see 100 percent at mastery," said District Superintendent John Barnes, "but that's not real," especially with increasing numbers of students taking Regents-level course work.

Misleading Figures

In Bridgehampton, however, Mr. Medio again said the state statistics were misleading.

Thirty-eight percent of the seven Bridgehampton students who took the English Regents passed; 15 percent of those scored 85 or better. However, the report card was based on an "average class size" of 13, almost double the actual number.

Had the figures been calculated on the precise number of students who took the course, "We would have shown a 70 percent pass rate and a 40 percent mastery," Mr. Medio said.

High School Math

High school math scores were slightly better than English across the board at the sequential one level.

In East Hampton, 70 percent of students who took level-one math Regents passed, with 40 percent of them achieving mastery. At the sequential three level, however, only 36 percent passed, and only 17 percent of those scored 85 or better.

At Pierson, 120 percent of those who took the sequential one Regents passed (the figure exceeds 100 percent because it includes eighth-graders), and 90 percent of them achieved mastery. But Pierson students, too, fell down later, in sequential three, where just 29 percent passed, of whom 15 percent achieved mastery.

At Bridgehampton, 62 percent of the 13 students enrolled took the sequential one Regents, and 38 percent of them scored 85 or better. Scores went down there, too, in sequential three, with 31 percent of 13 students passing the exam, but only 8 percent attaining mastery.

Unwanted Spotlight

In Amagansett, as in Bridgehampton and Springs, fewer than 90 percent of students scored above the remedial level in sixth-grade reading, putting that school among the 95 on Long Island in a trouble spotlight.

Amagansett Superintendent George Aman noted that in four of five categories his students performed well, with 100 percent attaining or exceeding the state reference point for remediation.

Small-School Skew

The data should be examined more closely, he advised. Though only 86 percent of students passed the sixth-grade reading test, said Dr. Aman, the performance of just two children, because of the small enrollment, skewed the results.

Dr. Aman said Amagansett students were successful in 218 of the 222 tests they sat for over the past three years.

Nonetheless, he added that a remedial reading teacher's part-time position has been extended from 50 percent of the time to 70 percent, and said teachers were benefiting from a 15-hour in-service program taught by Dr. George Cavuto, a reading expert from Dowling College.

Montauk's Performance

In Montauk, where third-grade reading scores were slightly lower than last year's (90 percent of students above the state minimum, down from 93 percent), Superintendent Jack Perna said he had added a teacher to first, second, and third-grade classrooms during reading lessons, to provide more individual attention.

"For small schools, the statistics are unreliable," reiterated Bridgehampton's Mr. Medio, "but I applaud Mr. Mills [New York State Commissioner of Education Richard Mills] for bringing public attention" to the performance of the state's public schools.

Many schools here said they would mail copies of the report cards to parents this week.