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Light Rain Long Beach test scores increase
Results of state ELA, math scores show positive trends in most grades
Long Beach students continue to improve their performance on New York state’s standardized English Language Arts and math assessments, according to results released by the State Education Department last week.
In nine of 12 scoring categories, there were increases in the percentages of students who met or exceeded the proficiency standards for the exams, which are given to those in grades 3 through 8.
Dr. Vincent Butera, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said that local students’ performance this year showed positive trends at most grade levels. “Just on the surface, these numbers are only part of a story,” Butera said. “We are in the process of analyzing the numbers to make more sense of them.”
Test scores are broken down into four levels. Students who score at Level 3 or 4 pass the test, meeting or exceeding the state standards. One example of a gain in performance came on the third-grade ELA exam: In 2010-11, 68 percent of third-graders had the top two scores, while 72.3 percent did so this year.
In grade 4, the cohort of top scorers on the ELA exam increased by 5.2 percentage points, Butera said, while in grade 5 it was 7.4 percentage points higher. In the third-grade math assessment, the passing rate jumped by 10.3 percentage points, while in grades 5 and 8, the improvements in math were 2.9 and 9.3 percentage points, respectively.
The passing percentages for the fourth-grade math and seventh-grade ELA exams were unchanged from 2010-11, while on the seventh-grade math assessment, it dropped by 4.9 percentage points.
“We’re looking into which students decreased and in which class, so we’re doing a further analysis to see why there was a decrease in that specific grade level,” Butera said. “Then we’ll develop a plan of action to ensure that we improve those numbers.”
Butera said that Long Beach students’ passing rates exceeded the Long Island average in both tests in grades 3, 4 and 5, and that eighth-graders exceeded the Nassau County average on the math exam for the first time in six years.
