Freeport’s ELA and Math results

New York State Department of Education released the results of the 2015 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Math tests last week. Overall, students in Freeport, as well as statewide, have made incremental progress in ELA and Math since 2013, when the first year assessments aligned to the more rigorous learning standards were administered in grades 3-8. “We are making progress,” Dr. Kishore Kuncham, Superintendent of Freeport Schools said. “We gained one percentage point in ELA and three percentage points in Math.”

Freeport is classified as a high needs suburban district and “if you take that into consideration and look at other districts with that classification, we gained six percentage points in ELA and Math,” Kuncham said.

However, Freeport did not perform as well as the overall county average. Students are considered to be proficient if they score on Level Three or Four.

“Most of our students scored at a Level Two or higher – 60 percent for ELA and 64 percent for Math and that means our students are on track to meet the new graduation standards,” Kuncham said.

The New York State Department of Education defines a Level Two score as “Students performing at this level are partially proficient in standards for their grade. They demonstrate knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for Mathematics that are considered partial but insufficient for the expectations at this grade. Students performing at Level 2 are considered on track to meet current New York high school graduation requirements but are not yet proficient on Common Core Learning Standards at this grade.”

Meanwhile more students are choosing to “opt-out” of these state tests. And, critics of the new standards say the numbers do not reflect the district’s performance. In Freeport 250 eighth-graders opted-out of the tests. Additionally 84 students who passed the Algebra I Regents or Geometry Regents were not required to take the 8th Grade Math test. “That would mean 12 more percentage points,” Kuncham said.

Most of the students that refused the test, or chose to “opt-out,” were in grades five through eight. Ninety-four students at Atkinson School also refused the test.

The New York State Department of Education said progress for Black and Hispanic students held steady in 2015 ELA and math statewide, although information on this population was not available for Freeport students. While the percentage of students scoring at the proficient level edged up slightly in both subjects, Black and Hispanic students still face a significant achievement gap. English Language Learners (ELLs) also made small gains in 2015 in ELA and math but still lag behind their non-ELL peers.