51.0°,
Overcast Rockville Centre students’ test scores rise
District continues to implement Common Core standards
Students in the Rockville Centre school district showed marked improvement in this year’s state English Language Arts and math assessments.
With the exception of the fourth-grade ELA and math exams, the percentage of district students who passed the statewide tests increased over 2011. And the passing percentages in every grade were higher than both the Nassau County and state averages.
The good news about the exams, which are taken by students in grades 3 through 8, comes after two straight years in which local students’ scores declined. The improvements may be attributable in part to adjustments the school district made in response to changes in the tests since 2010 — they are now longer and more difficult, and the grade needed to pass has been raised.
“The longer you have something, the better you get at doing it,” said Board of Education President Liz Dion. “The teachers have more experience; the students have more experience. We’re very pleased with the results.”
According to Dion, district teachers and students may be adapting to further adjustments in the curriculum next year, when the Common Core State Standards are implemented. The goal of Common Core, unveiled in June 2010, is to develop widely shared standards that prepare students for success in college, graduate work and careers. The Common Core program has been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The goal of the program, Superintendent Dr. William Johnson explained, is to prepare high school seniors for higher education and the 21st century workplace. Johnson said that Common Core standards require in-depth understanding of the subject matter. Students will be called on to develop longer, more thoughtful and creative responses in the exams, and they will receive more than a cursory exposure to a broad range of topics.
One way to describe the change, Johnson said, is that there will be a shift from fiction toward nonfiction: Students will need to be able to develop a more thorough understanding of a topic and use that understanding to analyze, compare, contrast and create new information.
