On Friday the New York State Education Department released the spring 2016 3-8 Grade ELA and Math assessment results, which includes  data from all schools within the state, including Jamestown.

Statewide,  the percentage of  students in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) for ELA increased by 6.6 percentage points to 37.9, up from 31.3 in 2015. While Jamestown still lags behind the statewide proficiency average, the district did see a 4 percent increase at the proficient level for all students who took the tests (2,128 students), bringing it to 24 percent (508 students). That’s 4 percentage points higher compared to 2015. In fact, it’s the first time in the past four years that the proficiency rate in ELA saw an increase.

However, student results in Math didn’t see the same level of success. In fact, the overall percentage of students who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) actually sent down slightly compared to 2015 test results. According to the state education department, just 21 percent (429) of all Jamestown students (2,069 students) who take the standardized math test this year scored at the proficiency level. It was 22 percent in 2015.

The results were similar at the statewide level as not much ground was gained in overall student proficiency for math. According to state data, the percentage of students who scored at the proficient levels increased this year to 39.1, up just one percentage point from 38.1 in 2015.

JAMESTOWN BEHIND STATEWIDE AVERAGE

As the numbers show, Jamestown still lags behind the rest of the state when it comes to student proficiency in ELA and Math and ranks among the lowest in the state. Socioeconomic factors could play a role. State data shows that an estimated 70 percent of students that attend Jamestown Public Schools are considered “Economically Disadvantaged” – students who participate in, or whose families participate in, economic assistance programs*.

Of the 1,533 students considered economically disadvantaged who took the ELA test, just 17 percent scored at the proficient levels. By comparison, 43 percent of students considered not economically disadvantaged and who took the exams scored at the proficient levels.  For Math the trend was similar. Just 15 percent of economically disadvantaged students scored at the proficient level, while 36 percent of the non-economically disadvantaged students saw their scores at the proficient level.

CHANGES ASSESSMENTS MAY BE REASON FOR IMPROVEMENTS

The increase in proficiency rates statewide could be attributed to recent changes to how the tests are developed and rolled out, while some credit may also be given to teachers and students who have a better understanding of what to expect from the exams.

“The Regents, Commissioner and I have worked hard to make New York’s assessments the best they can be for our students,” Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said in a media release. “I’ve always said that tests must be diagnostic, valid and reliable while providing timely and practical information to parents and teachers. We made important changes to the assessments this year and we’re going to continue to look at ways to make them even better moving forward. While it’s not possible to make direct comparisons of this year’s results to past years, I’m cautiously optimistic the changes we’re making will drive improvements in teaching and learning.”

“The Regents and I are committed to continuously improving our standards, our curriculum and our assessments,” State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said. “Since my first day on the job a little over a year ago, I’ve been listening to parents, teachers, school administrators and the public – seeking their expertise on how we can improve. We’ve taken their advice and made important changes to the exams. It’s an ongoing process, but better standards, better curriculum and better tests will result in better student outcomes.”

Jamestown Public Schools was unable to provide immediate comment to WRFA on the latest test results when contacted Monday morning.

Jamestown Public School ELA Testing Results (2013-2016)

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Jamestown Public School Math Testing Results (2013-2016)

*Economically Disadvantaged students are those who participate in or who’s families participate in one or more of the following public assistance programs: free or reduced-price lunch programs, Social Security Insurance (SSI), Food Stamps, Foster Care, Refugee Assistance (cash or medical assistance), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), Safety Net Assistance (SNA), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), or Family Assistance: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Standardized testing begins this week for students in grades 3 through 8, who will be taking ELA (English Language Arts), starting on Tuesday. The math exams begin next week.

The tests are given in order to assess how each school district has applied the Common Core teaching standards to their curriculum. Since first being given, they’ve been a sore subject for parents and teachers across the state. Parents feel the additional tests add unneeded stress to their child’s live, while teachers feel the tests are unfair because they often involve testing parts of curriculum that teachers themselves have yet to implement in their teaching. The tests were also initially going to be used to help measure teacher performance, although that has since been removed as evaluation criteria by the state education department.

Jamestown School Superintendent Tim Mains told WRFA last week that the state education department has also responded to concerns brought forward by parents.

“There’s a new vendor that’s managing the process and even though that new vendor is so new that they have to use old questions that were field tested by the previous company, they took those questions and put them in front of teachers,” Mains explained. “So they had teachers who read every single item, threw out things that they felt weren’t grade appropriate or that they didn’t think were fair. They shortened the test a bit. And the biggest piece, which I personally love, is that they no longer will have a time limit.”

Mains adds that by removing the time limit on the exams, there should be less stress for students since they know they won’t have to rush through the exam.

Jamestown Public Schools Superintendent Tim Mains

It remains to be seen if parents in the county will be satisfied with the changes, or if they will instead try to opt their students out of the exam. In 2015, Jamestown Public Schools reported an opt-out rate of 2 percent for the ELA exam, and a 3 percent opt-out rate for the math exam. The school district with the highest percentage of opt-outs in Chautauqua County was Fredonia School district with a 53 percent math assessment refusal rate and a 50 percent refusal rate for the ELA exams.

Mains said he’s hopeful that Jamestown will have a high participation rate because it’s crucial that the district knows how will it is doing in teaching the common core curriculum.

“I know that there are some folks who take objection to the common core, but the higher standards are exactly where we need to be, exactly where we need to be headed, and I want our children to perform well and be able to meet those standards,” he said. “If they’re not meeting those standards then we want to know, and we can’t know if they are not taking those tests.”

Mains said a newsletter recently went out to parents reminding them the tests are taking place this week, and also asking parents to make sure their children are prepared by getting rest, eating a breakfast that is low in sugar and high in protein, and to also reassure their children.

“Parents need to remind their children that the tests are not about them,” Mains said. “It’s not to say how smart they are, it’s simply to say how much can you do and show as much to do as you can. If you don’t know a question, then make your best guess or go onto a question that you can answer.”

In all, there will be three days of English tests this week and three days of math tests next week.

ALBANY – Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he plans to pursue legislation to change the Common Core program in New York.

On Thursday the governor released a statement saying he agrees with the goal of the learning standards, but believes its implementation across New York “has been deeply flawed.”

The governor also said that as time goes on, he feels more strongly that it’s not working, saying it certainly has not gotten any better and, if anything, it’s gotten worse.

The governor will spend the next few month seeking recommendations from education leaders and lawmakers, as well as from teacher and parent groups, on how to correct the common core problem. Those recommendations will then be used to create a plan that will be announced during his 2016 State of the State address in January.

The Common Core standards have been adopted by most states as a way to better prepare students for college and jobs but have faced a variety of criticism.

In April, more than 200,000 New York students, about 20 percent, sat out of annual Common Core-aligned math and English tests as parents protested the time spent preparing for and taking the tests, their difficulty, and use in teacher evaluations.

Common Core advocates have said that the standards have improved learning and that while they understand the need to focus on the implementation, it’s important that the actual common core standards remain in place.

New York State is ditching Pearson as its test-maker after years of high-profile missteps, switching to a smaller vendor that will cost more but comes with less baggage, the State Education Department announced earlier this month.

The state awarded a new five-year deal to Questar Assessment Inc., a Minneapolis-based company that has emerged in recent years as a smaller competitor to Pearson, the dominant vendor in the country’s lucrative standardized testing market.

The switch allows the state to distance itself from Pearson, which has faced intense criticism for missteps and errors included in its New York tests and become symbolic of broader concerns about the privatization of public education.

The new $44 million contract, which was not released and is still under review by the state’s attorney general and comptroller, is more expensive than Pearson’s $32 million contract. But it likely includes a requirement to design computer-based exams for use in spring 2017 in addition to paper-and-pencil tests for third through eighth grades in math and English.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

WASHINGTON – Congressman Tom Reed (R-NY) is joining a bipartisan effort that addresses the recent opt-out movement involving standardized testing.

The Corning Republican – who represents Chautauqua County in Washington – has partnered with Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro in introducing the EMPOWER Act, which stands for Enable More Parents to Opt-Out Without Endangering Resources.

According to Reed, if approved by Congress, the EMPOWER Act would allow parents  to opt-out of annual standardized testing without fear that their local school would see a reduction in school aid.

Currently, when parents opt-out their children from testing, many school districts see their federal funding in jeopardy. This has resulted in a districts and parents at odds over whether or not a child should take the exam. Under Reed’s proposed law, the districts that have a low participation rate in the standardized tests would still be held harmless when it comes to receiving school aid.

The legislation has received support from both the National Education Association (NEA) and the New York State Teachers Union (NYSTU).

Jamestown Public Schools Superintendent Tim Mains

JAMESTOWN, NY – A new round of testing is now underway across New York State, but as an estimated one million students in third through eighth grades began taking their common core tests, also known as standardized tests, for English Language Arts (ELA) on Tuesday, thousands of their peers  have opted out.

In Jamestown, it appears only a small group of students have opted out of the exam process. That’s according to Jamestown Superintendent Tim Mains, who spoke with WRFA Tuesday afternoon.

“The overwhelming majority of students in Jamestown are taking their tests, as they should,” Mains said. “So I think most parents recognize that this is an opportunity for kids to show what they know, and I believe we have very few people who refuse to take the tests.”

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Some school districts in the state are seeing a high number of opt out rates and as a result, they’ve set aside space in the district where those students can go to quietly study or do other school work. However, Mains said that Jamestown doesn’t have the resources to provide an alternative space for its opt out students. As a result, they are required to sit quietly in the exam room while their peers take the tests.

“Our responsibility is to make sure the tests are available to all students,” Mains said. “There is no place for [the opt out students] to go. Anyone that is scheduled to take the test is in the room to take the test.”

“If their parents have directed them to refuse the test then they sit there until the proctor decides that the test time is up, or they have the opportunity to do something else, but we don’t have any place to put them,” Mains added. “When we go into testing it’s all hands on deck so we need all available staff to make sure the tests are administered and administered properly.”

Many parents are opting their children out of the exams because of the stress the tests have created. But Mains feels the exams are essential to strengthening the current education system.

“I don’t think there’s too much testing and I don’t think the tests are unfair. In fact I see the tests, in terms of instruction, as an essential way that we have of improving our delivery and helping the kids identify and correct any problems that they might be having,” Mains said.

Supporters of the opt-out movement say refusing the Common Core-aligned tests sends a message to state leaders, with parent groups expressing frustration with the state’s reliance on “high-stakes” tests and the New York State United Teachers union angered by a recent move to make teacher evaluations more reliant on student test scores.

But the state’s education leaders say opting out is the wrong choice and some sanctions could be delivered to districts that don’t have a high participation rate.

The English Language Arts testing continues today and Thursday, with another round of math exams schedule for next week.

According to an article in Elmira’s Star Gazette, a parent-led effort to opt their children out of New York’s standardized tests appears to have gained momentum in recent weeks, with the head of the state’s teachers union, various labor-backed groups and even the Working Families Party of New York throwing support behind the movement.

The surge in opt-outs could may cause problems for local school districts, who are facing a threat of potential sanctions from the state Education Department if participation rates on the exams are low. If a district falls below a 95 percent participation rate, the state can impose sanctions – with the most severe punishment being a cut in federal funding.

Some officials say as many as 200,000 parents and students could opt out this year, with many of them living her in Chautauqua County. Last week during the Jamestown School board meeting, Superintendent Tim Mains briefly talked about the importance of the exams, explaining that its crucial for the district to have a high number of students take the exam because it is state law and the district is not in any kind of position to be faced with possible sanctions.

According to the Star Gazette article, the state doesn’t tally the number of parents who refused the test on their children’s behalf. But 67,000 students who didn’t take the 2014 math exam had no “known, valid” excuse, along with 49,000 students who skipped the English Language Arts test, according to the state Education Department.

The “opt out” movement gained steam last year with both parents and teachers voicing concern over the state’s widely criticized rollout of the Common Core, a more-challenging set of education standards being implemented in New York and more than 40 other states.