Bloomberg’s metric-centric testing legacy is over.
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced Wednesday that state exams will no longer be the primary criteria for determining promotions in grades 3 through 8.
Educators will now consider a more “holistic approach” that includes a student’s overall body of classroom work, attendance, and participation in class projects, as well as test scores.
But the city isn’t putting in place a standard metric for teachers and principals to use to determine who goes on to the next grade and who doesn’t.
“This new way forward maintains accountability, but mitigates the unintended consequences of relying solely on a single test,” Fariña said.
The policy is a stark contrast from the Bloomberg administration, which insisted students take rigorous tests and required about 32,000 students last year who scored the lowest score on exams to attend summer school.
About 8,000 were ultimately forced to repeat their grade.
Only 16 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 scored at Level 1 — the lowest category — on state exams in 2012. But when the state adopted tough new Common Core standards last year, 47 percent of students scored at Level 1.
NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina speaks with students Carlos Cruz and Lluvia Hernandez while visiting J.H.S. 088 Peter Rouget school in Brooklyn.Photo: Getty Images
Under the previous administration, Level 1 students would advance to the next grade after the school administered a portfolio assessment, the student scored a higher level 2 on another exam at the end of the summer, and the superintendent signed off on the promotion.
But the latest rules for 425,000 elementary and middle school kids will de-emphasize the Common Core exams and give more power to teachers and principals to determine students’ fates.
Albany this year blocked the use of Common Core test results in student evaluations for at least two years.
Under the revised system announced by Fariña, teachers will assess students based on their overall work , principals will make decisions on promotions and superintendents will only oversee the process and will get directly involved only if appeals when their kid is left back.
The city is also scrapping the multiple choice exam given at the end of the summer school in favor of a more comprehensive evaluation that incorporates student work during the summer school that principals will review.
Department of Education officials said they anticipate a similar number of students attending summer school this year as last year despite the policy change.
Legislators who have been denouncing the Common Core program as too rushed applauded the changes.
Standardized testing has been a heavily debated issue among advocates, parents and policymakers.Photo: Stefan Jeremiah
“We have long taken the position that using tests as the sole or primary factor in making decisions about a child’s future is both unwise and unreliable,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan said in a joint statement.
Some parent advocates called the change a “positive step forward.”
“The research is overwhelmingly clear that holding back kids on the basis of one or two test scores is not just unfair but really hurts their academic progress and leads to higher dropout rates,” parent activist Leonie Haimson said.
Campbell Brown, of the ParentsTransparency Project, said allowing kids who aren’t prepared to move to a higher grade would be disastrous.
“No one benefits from the promotion of a student who is not ready for the next grade level — particularly the student himself or herself who will be ill-prepared and at risk of never catching up with his or her peers. If there is a set of metrics other than exams to determine if a child is truly ready for the next step, we’re all ears; but not if that criteria in any way waters down the standards for promotion,” she said.
But education reformers questioned how the city could get students prepared for college without using metrics to measure their abilities.
“When the test scores of nearly half our city’s kids warranted possible grade retention, our focus should be on ensuring high quality instruction on the front end, not on changing the bar for promotion,”StudentsFirstNY executive director Jenny Sedlis said.
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