By LARRY MAIER
Bellmore-Merrick District high-school students fared even better, with 100 percent passing the math Regents and 98 percent passing the English exam. (For a further breakdown of scoring, see chart above.)
Statewide, 86.6 percent of students passed the math exam and 89.1 percent made the grade in English. State education officials are particularly encouraged by the state's math scores, which are up from 77.2 percent the previous year
The results, state education officials say, are proof that students and school districts are rising to the challenge of increasing academic standards. Many officials in Albany are pushing to go ahead with plans to raise passing scores on Regents exams from 55 to 65.
Fredric Cohen, deputy superintendent for instruction of the Bellmore-Merrick Central District, said that while he is pleased the district's students performed well, the high-test scores are more a function of Regents exams becoming easier than they are of improved instruction.
"It's easier to get a passing score on a Regents exam compared to what it used to be," said Cohen. "And it's also so much easier to get a passing score on the Regents exam than it is on the eighth-grade exams."
Cohen has criticized the state's admonishments of middle schools for poor scores on eighth-grade math and English state tests. This year, Cohen conducted a study, which showed that every eighth-grade in Nassau and Suffolk counties performed worse than its fourth-grade on the state tests.
"It's not that the middle schools are doing poorly; it's that the standards that the state sets are arbitrary," said Cohen, who believes the state has made Regents exams easier in the wake of the increased standards for political reasons. "They can't afford to say that now 20 percent of our kids won't graduate."
As further proof that Regents exams are getting easier, Cohen points to an internal study within the Bellmore-Merrick District that shows scores from regular level classes on the biology Regents have risen from 85 percent passing in 1998 to 99 percent on 2001. On the English Regents, 85 percent passed in 1998, and 97 percent passed in 2001. And on the U.S. history Regents, the scores rose from 75 percent passing to 94 percent.
"Our instruction has improved, but that accounts for only a percentage of the improvement," said Cohen. "A good deal of it is based on the fact that the exams are easier to pass."
Cohen also said that, during the first 20 years of his 23 years of service in the district, students used to average two to five points higher on their final class grades than their Regents grades. In the last three years, that scenario has reversed.
Another inconsistency with the Regents exams, said Cohen, is the fact that special-education students can take the easier Regents Competency Test instead of the Regents for at least four more years, while English as a Second Language students, even students who have come to the United States recently, must pass the English Regents to graduate.
"I'm not complaining about the accommodations for special-education students," said Cohen. "I'm complaining about the fact that ESL kids have no accommodations."
