State Report Cards
Even without the Governor's proposals in the last week, the quality of education in the state was very much on the public's mind following the release from the State Department of Education of a crush of paper called school report cards.
According to State Education Commissioner Richard Mills, the purpose of the reports, the first of their kind in New York State, was to raise the public's consciousness about how their districts stand up against comparable districts and to push for higher student achievement.
Filled with Regents rankings and bar graphs and pass-fail rates on standardized elementary-level math and reading tests, among others, the cumbersome documents recap data presented to school boards last summer.
If nothing else, Mary Ann Awad, the project coordinator, said, the reports had prompted more public discussion about student performance than she had heard in 17 years at the department.
While that is desirable, the public's ability to assess the meaning of their districts' report cards was undermined by the very department that went to so much trouble to produce them. The department released the reports to the school districts three weeks before allowing the public to review them. That gave tacit encouragement to school administrators to massage the numbers and present the best spin.
More substantively, the comparison of "similar districts" did not work adequately. It would have been more appropriate, many say, to compare East Hampton, for example, with Southampton, than with districts UpIsland with different populations.
The reports contained some bad news on the issue of subject "mastery." The state says an 85 or better score on Regents tests indicates mastery, a score that so far has proved elusive for the majority of test-takers. In addition, the number of elementary school students testing above the minimum standard, below which remedial help becomes necessary, showed a "disturbing trend," the Commissioner said, although the state is somewhat skeptical of the tests used and is revising them.
Beyond that, the report cards provide a way, in the Commissioner's words, for districts to re-evaluate how they "grow from here" and "what actually works." In East Hampton, there is talk now of mandatory tutoring during the school day. In Amagansett and Montauk, and we hope elsewhere, efforts are already under way to shore up reading skills by adding faculty and training for existing teachers.
Whether the positive results will justify the expense of preparing the report cards is anybody's guess, however. When asked this week how much the project actually cost, Ms. Awad said, "I have no idea."