New York state lowers minimum scores for student proficiency, says post-Covid scores are ‘new normal’

New York State is ready to lower the level required for students to be classified as ‘proficient’ on math and English tests.

The change, which will affect students in grades three through eight, is a response to the reality that academic standards have declined since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last year, New York students performed terrible compared to 2019. In Schenectady, not one eighth grader was considered proficient in math.

The change will cause the test proficiency threshold, known as a “cut score,” to be lowered to ensure more students appear to be in good academic shape.

“Yes, there is learning loss between 2019 and 2022, but somehow we don’t want to go back further,” Perie told the Times Union. We are in this new normal. So for New York, we’re saying the new baseline is 2022.”

The change, which will affect students in grades three through eight, is a response to the reality that academic standards have declined since the Covid-19 pandemic.

“They are changing it because too many children would not be considered ‘proficient’ due to the impact of the pandemic on academic learning,” Jasmine Gripper, chief executive of the Alliance for Quality Education, told DailyMail.com.

Gripper said that changing the targets by lowering the thresholds not only reduces the credibility of the test, but also perpetuates inequities among children and traps certain children in low-performing schools.

“By changing the cut scores, we are protecting wealthy white communities from experiencing the high-stakes consequences of state testing that Black and Latino communities have always faced,” he said.

“There will still be kids at the bottom, and the kids that were traditionally at the bottom will stay at the bottom,” he said.

Gripper argued that the need to change the bar exposes the flaws in the system and exposes the damage such tests can cause.

“It really speaks to why state testing is problematic,” Gripper said. “We want tests that drive instruction, instead teachers are encouraged to teach to the test.”

He also explained that the change would have negative consequences that would not apply to wealthy communities.

Schools that are underperforming on state tests could be placed in ‘judicial settlement,’ which means certain schools could be closed and top teachers could be incentivized to go to higher-performing schools.

“Often these assessments don’t lead to improved learning, but just lead to labels that are hard to get out of,” Gripper said.

‘The value of your home is determined by how well children are doing in local schools. It’s pampering, it’s that we’ve always done it and we’ll always continue to do it,’ she added.

Across the US, math scores saw their biggest declines due to the pandemic, and reading scores fell to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

Many of the issues facing schools across the country stem from the pandemic and the way the closures affected the way children were taught and exacerbated inequities.

“You think we had rampant inequality before the pandemic, then there was a shift to remote learning that exacerbated the inequality, for example, depending on whether you had high-speed internet at home, you might not be able to fully participate,” Gripper said. .

She says the three academic school years were hit hard by the reaction to Covid. The first year it was hybrid, the next year was almost entirely remote, and the third year it was hybrid again. Only now are schools beginning to recover.

Over the summer, the committee will do the same for the US history Regents exam: the change will take effect in 2024.

Across the US, math scores saw their biggest declines due to the pandemic, and reading scores fell to levels not seen since the early 1990s, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the ” nation’s report card.

Scores collected from hundreds of thousands of fourth and eighth graders found that nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to grasp basic math concepts.