By Kathianne Boniello
Nearly all Queens school districts showed at least some improvement on this year’s test scores for city and state exams, but only a pair of the borough’s seven districts had a majority of students pass the reading and math exams.
The city Board of Education released results July 10 for most of the tests used to gauge the academic performance of city students in grades three through eight, but not all. Because of incomplete testing information, the Board of Ed has not released reading scores for city seventh-graders, and state math results for fourth- and eighth-graders also were not available this week.
The board is re-evaluating the accuracy of the seventh-grade scores, a Board of Ed spokesman said.
Queens school districts showed minimal improvement on city and state reading scores between 2001 and 2002, but only two borough school districts had a decline in scores. Reading scores dropped 2 percent in Rosedale’s School District 29 this year and 0.3 percent in School District 27 in Ozone Park.
Math scores throughout Queens jumped between this year and last year, with Jackson Heights’ School District 30 posting the biggest gain at 7 percent on citywide tests taken by third-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders.
Schools Chancellor Harold Levy said the upward swing in math scores “is a trend that we must work hard to continue.”
Overall, similar patterns emerged in the 2002 results, with Bayside’s School District 26 topping city reading and math scores and Flushing’s School District 25 coming in third out of all districts in the five boroughs. Only Manhattan’s School District 2 did better than District 25.
With the state’s increased emphasis on higher academic standards in the last several years and more rigorous testing for all New York students, the city’s tests have followed a setup similar to the fourth- and eighth-grade state tests, with math and reading exams being graded on four different levels.
In general, Levels 1 and 2 have been seen as not meeting an exam’s academic standard, while Level 3 has been considered passing and Level 4 excelling on a test. Passage rates generally are determined by combining the number of students who scored in Levels 3 and 4 on the exams.
Though test results for most city school districts remain dismal with an average of just 39 percent of students passing reading tests and an average of 35 percent of students meeting math standards, Levy appears to have perfected the art of looking on the bright side when it comes to student exam scores.
Levy pinpointed the declines in sagging reading exam passage rates as occurring in the middle school grades, while “grades three, four and five continued to post results that trend upwards.”
In Queens, passage rates generally were higher on reading tests than math tests.
Reading results on city and state tests for third- through sixth-graders and eighth-graders show that Glendale’s School District 24 had 43 percent of its students pass, as did 58 percent of children in District 25 and 74 percent of students in District 26.
School District 27 in Ozone Park had a 36 percent passage rate, while about half of the students in Forest Hills’ School District 28 passed. School District 29 in Rosedale had a 39 percent passage rate while District 30 had 46 percent.
Math passage results on city tests for students in the third, fifth, sixth and seventh grades were similar to reading passage rates for Districts 26 and 25, with each district earning the same passage rates on both tests.
In District 24 38 percent of students passed, while District 27 had a pass rate of 33.4 percent and District 28 45 percent. School District 29 had 33.1 percent of its students pass the math exam, and School District 30 had 47 percent of students pass.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
