2009 Performance Tests
Overall Long Island schools’ outperform New York State. But the gap between low-poverty and high-poverty schools remains consistent.
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Why is this important?
According to the NYS Education Department, the Grade 4 English Language Arts (ELA) exam and the Grade 8 Mathematics exam reflect benchmarks that identify those students who are on target to pass, and those who may have difficulty passing, the English and Mathematics Regents Exams when they reach high school. These are part of the requirements for graduating with NYS’ Regents Diploma.
How are we doing?
4th Grade English Language Arts
In 2007, 81% of Long Island students met the ELA Grade 4 standard. State-wide 68% of students met the standard. Both represent a small improvement form the previous year. The gap between low-poverty schools and high-poverty schools remains wide: 88% meeting the standard compared to 63% for each respectively.
8th Grade Mathematics
Both NYS and Long Island schools improved in Grade 8 Math performance, correcting a slight decrease over the previous three years. In 2007, 75% of students in Long Island schools met the Math 8 standard, while state-wide 52% of students met standard. Both the high-poverty and low-poverty schools improved by 10 percentage points. The gap between the high- and low-poverty schools becomes significantly wider by the middle school years and there has been no change in the size of the gap over the past seven years. While in 4th Grade, 63% of the students in poor schools were meeting the English Language Arts standard, by middle school only 44% meet the standard for the 8th Grade Mathematics requirement. There is no comparable drop-off in the low-poverty schools where 88% meet the English standard in elementary school and 81% meet the 8th Grade Math standard.