It’s easy to see why the State Education Department stalled on releasing the latest English and math test scores for grades 3-8, and why New Yorkers won’t get the final (whitewashed) results until November: They show fewer than half of all kids statewide scoring grade-level-proficient or better in English; just 52% in math.
And, for those that took the science exam, even worse: just 35%.
The kids took the multiple-choice tests back in April and May: SED has no excuse for the absurdly long time in releasing even preliminary results; officials’ protest that they’re trying to produce them “as quickly as possible to improve classroom instruction” is total smoke.
(It’s already too late!)
But SED, and the Regents who run it, are beyond any parent, taxpayer or voter accountability: In practice, they answer only to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie — who’s too subservient to the teachers unions to demand better.
Once upon a time, the tests helped determine if students were ready to advance to the next grade; now “social promotion” has become the rule, with academic merit and achievement out the door.
All the tests do now is help expose the failure of public schools to educate our kids (especially those in poor and minority neighborhoods) — which is why SED, the Regents and the unions are pushing to ditch standardized testing entirely.
The educrats should be so ashamed they’d commit seppuku.
Instead, Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, Regents Chancellor Lester Young & Co. just push for ever-greater school spending.
Yet the state has jacked education aid by more than $6 billion since the 2021-22 school year, much of it concentrated on the least-wealthy districts.
New York leads the nation in education spending but ranks near the bottom when it comes to student achievement.
Families fed up with New York’s public schools are fleeing to private academies, charter schools, home-schooling — and other states.
Good for them: With state leaders bent on doing nothing but hide the truth while sucking up ever more cash, those parents would be insane to stay.