NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The New York State Education Department has released ELA and Math assessment results including those for New Rochelle. Grade 5 Math scores are currently unavailable due to an error.
The Math and ELA exams, commonly referred to as the “Common Core” exams were given last spring.
New Rochelle ELA and Math Assessment Results 2013-2014
New Rochelle ELA and Math Assessment Results 2012-2013
Within the limitations of not having the 5th grade math results, Talk of the Sound has run some preliminary analysis of the data for what is the second set of test results based on the new standards. Once the full data is available we will add it and run further analysis.
The ELA and Math tests are typically evaluated as “pass/fail” where “pass” is a rank of 3 or 4 and a “fail” is a rank of 1 or 2.
The 2012-13 and 2013-14 reports are not “symmetrical” (2012-13 is ordered by Grade and then test within Grade whereas 2013-14 is ordered by subject and then Grade within the subject) making a line by line comparison difficult and confusing.
Compounding that is the missing data for the Math exam for 5th grade making a link by line comparison confusing and making year-to-year comparisons for 5th grade and by cohort from 4th to 5th grade impossible at this time.
I created a spreadsheet where I corrected all of this so that 2012-13 lines up to 2013-14 for easy comparison. I then measured the differential in raw percentage points between the two years in each category (except for Grade 5 which was eliminated). Finally, I measured the differential in raw percentage points between various cohorts within schools. For example, Grade 5 Math 2013-14 v Grade 4 Math 2012-13 at Jefferson School which largely measures the performance of the same students.
ELAMATH-2012-13v2013-14.xlsx.pdf
I color-coded the spreadsheet somewhat informally where yellow is “bad” and blue is “good” and purple indicates change in class/cohort size.
So, what stands out?
The first thing that jumps out is not grades but the decline by 22 in the number of students taking the Grade 8 Math Exam at Albert Leonard Middle School in 2013-2014 and students in that same cohort taking the Grade 7 Math Exam. The number of 8th graders taking the ELA Exam dropped 14 students from those taking the Grade 7 ELA Exam the year before.
This may be an early indicator of parents opting their children out of the Common Core exams.
Generally speaking, Webster did very well, Trinity had some remarkable numbers, Columbus showed real struggled and Albert Leonard was very mixed.
A dive into the details shows areas that may require additional scrutiny (you may want to have the spreadsheet open as you review this section).
Districtwide, we see that Grade 3 Math up 40 students and Grade 3 ELA is up 32 students. Grade 7 Math is down 41 students and Grade 7 ELA is down 32 students.
Looking at cohort comparisons on a Districtwide basis, we see a 10% increase in Level 2 scores for Grade 6 Math 2013-14 v Grade 5 Math 2012-13
The single number that jumps out the most is the Columbus Grade 3 ELA performance where just 12% (18 students) ranked 3/4. Columbus Grade 4 ELA was 19% and Columbus Grade 5 ELA was 20%. Passing grades for Grade 4 Math declined by 17% and by 15% for Grade 3 ELA.
Cohort comparisons show that Columbus Grade 5 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 4 ELA 2012-13 saw a decrease of 11% for Level 3 and a 15% decrease for Level 2, all offset by an increase of 24% for Level 1.
Jefferson Grade 4 ELA was just 19% and Grade 5 ELA was 20%. There was a 10% increase in Jefferson students getting a passing grade on Grade 3 Math.
Cohort comparisons show that Jefferson Grade 5 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 4 ELA 2012-13 had a 13% decline in Level 2.
Perhaps the most noteworthy result was Trinity Grade 3 Math where 51% of students passed the test, one of just a handful of results where half the students or more passed a particular exam.
Trinity Grade 3 Math showed a 13% increase in passing grades from last year.
Cohort comparisons show that Trinity Grade 5 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 4 ELA 2012-13 declined 12% in Level 2.
Perhaps the best performing school over all was Webster.
Webster Grade 4 Math (54%) and Webster Grade 5 ELA (51%) both exceeds the 50% mark.
Davis Grade 5 ELA passing grades declined by 19% while Grade 4 Math increased 12%.
Cohort comparisons show that Davis Grade 4 Math 2013-14 v Grade 3 Math 2012-13 declined 17% for Level 2.
Cohort comparisons for Ward show Grade 4 Math 2013-14 v Grade 3 Math 2012-13 up 15% for Level 4 and Grade 4 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 3 ELA 2012-13 decrease of 10% for Level 1.
The assessment results continue to show a large gap between Isaac E. Young Middle School and Albert Leonard Middle School.
To take but one example to illustrate the issue, both schools have about 385 students in Grade 8: of the 383 students who took the ELA exam at ALMS, 183 passed the test whereas of the 387 students at Isaac just 85 passed the test — almost a 100 student difference. The math results were about the same.
ALMS Grade 6 Math (50%) was one of the few exams where half or more of the students passed the test. Grade 6 Math showed a 12% increase in the number of students passing the exam.
Cohort comparisons for ALMS show Grade 7 Math 2013-14 v Grade 6 Math 2012-13 increased 22% in Level 1, Grade 8 Math 2013-14 v Grade 7 Math 2012-13 increased 12% in level 1 and 11% in Level 2 with a corresponding decline of 14% in Level 3 and 9% in Level 4 Grade 7 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 6 ELA 2012-13 showed an 11% drop in Level 4.
Students passing at IEYMS on the Grade 8 Math was 20%, IEYMS Grade 6 ELA just 17% and IEYMS Grade 7 ELA at 20%.
Cohort comparisons for IEYMS show Grade 7 Math 2013-14 v Grade 6 Math 2012-13 increased 11% for Level 1 and Grade 7 ELA 2013-14 v Grade 6 ELA 2012-13 increased 10% in Level 3.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We will run this analysis again once the 5th grade exam results are made available. In addition, we will include some statewide and regional analysis as well as some student demographic analysis.