A searchable list of school-level test results can be found at the bottom of this story.
Reading and math scores shot up across New York City’s public schools last school year, according to state test results released Monday.
Among students in grades 3-8, nearly 57% of students were considered proficient in math, an increase of 3.5 percentage points. The gains were even sharper in reading. About 56% of students were proficient in the subject, a 7 percentage point increase.
Those gains come after Mayor Eric Adams has made overhauling reading instruction his signature education priority, an effort that has won support from union leaders and even candidates vying to unseat Adams in this November’s election. Top city officials argued Monday that their efforts are bearing fruit, as all elementary schools were required to use city-approved reading curriculums last school year through an initiative known as NYC Reads.
“This is what happens when we stay focused on evidence-based instruction and never lose sight of what’s possible for our young people,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement.
Experts said the test score gains were encouraging, but cautioned that many factors can influence them and it’s impossible to isolate the effect of the curriculum overhauls.
“It’s at least suggestive that there’s real improvement,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school performance and accountability systems. Results from a separate battery of assessments also hinted at some progress.
At the same time, Pallas noted test scores increased statewide by a similar magnitude as in New York City, which “does tamp down a little bit that it’s something special New York City is doing.” The city’s overall proficiency rates are slightly higher than those statewide, where 53% of students are proficient in reading and 55% are proficient in math.
City Education Department officials also mounted an aggressive test preparation effort last year targeting students who were at the cusp of passing the exams, which may have played a role in the test score increase. Some experts criticized that approach because it could create incentives for schools to focus on students close to proficiency rather than those furthest behind.
Officials noted that reading scores increased more sharply in earlier grades that were subject to the reading curriculum changes. There was an 11.6 percentage point jump in reading proficiency among students in grades 3-5 who were in the first phase of schools that started using the new curriculums two years ago. Among the second phase of schools, which implemented the curriculum changes last year, reading scores increased 10.4 percentage points.
Overall, Pallas said that more data is needed to draw firm conclusions about student proficiency over time. “If there’s real growth, it should be sustained. And that requires looking at scores over the next couple years,” he said.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said in a statement that the test score increases are “a testament to the hard work by New York City educators and our students. He singled out Aviles-Ramos, noting she “fought the Education Department] bureaucracy to make sure the needs of students and school communities came first.”
The state test results continued to reflect deep disparities between different student groups, though in some cases those gaps narrowed somewhat.
Black students, for instance, posted the largest test score increases in reading and math in the city’s public schools of any racial group. But they still lag their white and Asian American peers.
About 75% of Asian American students and 73% of white students were proficient in reading compared with 43.5% of Latino children and 47% of Black students. (Black students’ proficiency jumped about 8 percentage points.)
Meanwhile, nearly 81% of Asian American students and 75% of white students passed state math exams while only 43% of Black and Latino students were considered to be on grade level.
Only 29% of students with disabilities were proficient in math and nearly 27% were in reading. Even as students with disabilities made some gains in reading and math, the gap between those children and their nondisabled peers widened slightly.
Among students learning English as a new language, nearly 30% were proficient in math and 12.5% were proficient in reading — a gain of more than 4 percentage points in both categories.
The state exams have undergone a series of tweaks in recent years that have sometimes made it difficult to draw comparisons from the results year over year. For the last two years, the tests have remained stable, meaning the results should be comparable.
The state Education Department has expanded computer-based testing in lieu of paper exams and all students will take digital versions of the test next school year. Pallas said it is unlikely that will dramatically skew the results, though some schools have struggled with glitchy platforms.
Curious about school-level test results? Here is a searchable breakdown of math and English scores across all of the city’s public schools. (Charter schools are included in the table but not in the district’s overall numbers above.)
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
