By JOSEPH KELLARD
In Oceanside, while 81 percent of fourth-graders passed the English test, 62 percent of eighth-graders passed; 93 percent of fourth-graders passed the math test, compared with 73 percent of eighth-graders.
In Island Park, the gaps between the two grades were even wider, near or over 30 percent. On the English test, 77 percent of fourth-grade students passed, compared with just 50 percent of eighth-graders; in math, 87 percent of fourth-graders passed, while 55 percent of eighth-graders passed.
"That gap has been kind of county-wide," Oceanside Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown said. "Since they started these tests five years ago, the eighth-grade scores have been lower. [State Education Commissioner] Richard Mills has a whole committee together to look at middle school education. I'm not sure I have the answer for that, but it could be the way they are giving the test, or they might have to look into the structure of the test to see if they are valid and reliable."
"I haven't seen the scores in Newsday," Island Park Superintendent Dr. Edward Price told the Herald on Monday. "The only thing that I can say is that the data is nothing new, it's year-old stuff. It's stuff that we already knew about and dealt with. So, without seeing exactly what they printed I wouldn't want to comment any further."
Of Oceanside's six elementary schools, School 4 boasts the highest percentage of students who passed both tests, with 100 percent in math and 90 percent in English --although the school has the lowest enrollment in the district. School 3 showed a large gap between its scores, with 91 percent of students passing in math and 71 passing in English.
"We look for patterns all the time, and we have to be careful with things like that because every year it's a different group of kids," Brown said. "But our math results in fourth grade, for example, when you compare it to other districts of the percentage of kids passing, we were [ranked] about 13 or 14 in the county out of over 50 districts listed."
Among the district's accomplishments that it's most proud of is the 78 percent of students who received high school Regents diplomas, Brown said. "I think only 14 districts in Nassau County did as well as us or better in terms of percentage of kids getting a Regents diploma," he explained. "That's something that's real important, because it means the kids at the high school are graduating with the highest diploma available, by passing the five Regents exams."
The percentage of Oceanside students who passed the English and Sequential Math I Regents exams with a score of 55 or better, the state standards for graduation, was 95 in English and 94 in math. The percentage of these students passing these Regents with a score of 65 or better, the minimum needed for Regents diploma credit, was 92 in English and 91 in math.
The New York State Department of Education plans to raise the cutoff scores required for graduation from 55 to 65 by next year, first with seniors and later with special-education students.
Brown said that the district needs to improve its Language Arts scores in fourth grade, having implemented a new program from K-through-5. "We're hoping that the structure of the program will improve our scores," he said.
