Prior Years' Data:
1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004 2005 2006 2007

Resources:

2008 - NYSED English Language Arts & Math Test Press Release
2008 - NYSED ELA & Math Databases
2008 Gr. 3-8 ELA & Math Score Interpretation Data
NYSED District Report Cards
Technical Reports on Exams
nySTART
nyPARENTS
Myshortpencil's 2008 Ranking of NY Schools
Scotia-Glenville's Website Data Report

Related News Articles with Commentary

Statewide Student Achievement Improves
Reading and Math Scores Rise Sharply Across N.Y.
Urban schools narrow gap
The schools delivered
Mayor Sees a Test Scores Triumph
Student test scores better, but how much?
More Rochester-area students making the grade
Test scores up, until 8th grade
Improving test scores good news
Study Sought Of Test Score Gains in N.Y.
Scorekeeper for Schools
This is a test. Results may vary.

TABLES AND CHARTS

Summary Data
Percentage of NY Schools Having Higher Scores Than S-G
A Note on Making Comparisons Across Years
Statewide ELA-4 Scores 1999 to Present
Statewide Math-4 Scores 1999 to Present
Statewide ELA-8 Scores 1999 to Present
Statewide Math-8 Scores 1999 to Present
S-G Math & English Scores by Performance Levels
S-G Ranking Among 41 Capital District Schools
The Range of Passing Scores on All Exams -- 2008, Capital District
Change in Class Grade Point Average from 3rd to 8th Grade

2008 4th & 8th Grade ELA Results
Capital District Performance on the 4th-Grade ELA Exam
2008 4th-Grade ELA School District Rankings
Area ELA-4 Grade Point Average with High, Low & S-G
Capital District Performance on the 8th-Grade ELA Exam
2008 8th-Grade ELA School District Rankings
Area ELA-8 Grade Point Average with High, Low & S-G

2008 4th & 8th Grade Math Results
Capital District Performance on the 4th-Grade Math Exam
2008 4th-Grade Math School District Rankings
Area Math-4 Grade Point Average with High, Low & S-G
Capital District Performance on the 8th-Grade Math Exam
2008 8th-Grade Math School District Rankings
Area Math-8 Grade Point Average with High, Low & S-G

3rd, 5th, 6th & 7th Grade ELA & Math Charts
Percentage Passing All ELA Exams in the Capital District
2008 3rd-Grade ELA School District Rankings
2008 5th-Grade ELA School District Rankings
2008 6th-Grade ELA School District Rankings
2008 7th-Grade ELA School District Rankings

Percentage Passing All Math Exams in the Capital District
2008 3rd-Grade Math School District Rankings
2008 5th-Grade Math School District Rankings
2008 6th-Grade Math School District Rankings
2008 7th-Grade Math School District Rankings

Five Final Graphics
Area Average Pass Rate on All Exams by Grade
Area GPA for All Exams and All Years
2008 Statewide ELA Rank For S-G
2008 Statewide Math Rank For S-G
2008 Statewide Overall Rank For S-G

Color/Intensity Interpretation:  black - unchanged or initial if not the best or worst score; blue - better than previous year; magenta - worse than previous year; green - best year ever; red - worst year ever; bold of any color but green - 50% or more of NY schools had better results.

Is Scotia-Glenville Crashing?

Relative to the performance of other school districts, 2008 was Scotia-Glenville's worst performance ever on state exams.  Of the 24 categories tracked above, S-G set record lows in 13 of them.  In 10 of the categories, our students would have had an even or better than even chance of performing better in any other randomly chosen school district.  The brightest spot was a new record high for the percentage of students scoring in the top level on the 8th-grade ELA exam.  That was stupendous.  As 4th-graders in 2004, 38% of school districts did better on the top level, but as 8th-graders in 2008, only 28% did.  While that's a vast improvement, and perhaps a blip in the data more than a sustainable outcome for future years, it's still below the 20% level of performance that I believe our students are capable of achieving.   Also notable, the 7th- and 8th-grade math classes backed off last year's lows, with the exception of the percentage of students performing in the top level in the 7th grade. 

The performance on the 3rd- and 4th-grade ELA exams plummeted.  How can 2007 3rd-graders besting roughly 77% of schools in the state suddenly beat only 50% as 2008 4th graders?  A similarly perplexing drop occurred between 2007 6th graders and 2008 7th graders on the ELA exam.  But on the math exam, last year's worst ever third-grade scores became this year's worst ever 4th-grade scores.  The same goes for the 5th- to 6th-grade ELA scores and the 6th- to 7th-grade top level math score.  So, that much was consistent.  

Perhaps worst of all is that the district has only 1 3-year upward trend, and that's for the 8th-grade ELA top-level score.  And for next year, the only chance it has for a new 3-year upward trend is for the 8th-grade ELA mean score.  In my opinion, 3-year trends are crucial for determining whether score changes are random or being produced by effective improvements in instruction.

Statewide, 99.1% of school districts improved their average passing scores on all exams.  That follows a record setting improvement rate last year with 93.5% besting the prior year's performance.  Are passing rates steadily rising almost everywhere because teachers and students finally got it after 9 years of state exams?  Almost all of them?  All at once?  Highly unlikely.  

Here are some of the factors that affect exam outcomes:

Note on comparisons across years:  The table above, comparing the ranking of S-G's performance relative to other school districts, is the best means for making comparisons to earlier years with data from 2006 and thereafter.  In 2006, the state recalibrated its exams, which I commented on here.  By comparing rankings rather than scores, the effects of the recalibration are negated because every school district experienced the same changes.

There is one aspect in which all the exams are comparable--the performance levels for each exam show how well teachers and students did in meeting existing state standards--as tested, scored and scaled--at the time of the exam.

Incredibly, despite State Ed's insistence that results from 2006 and thereafter should not be compared to earlier years, slide #2 from 2007's Commissioner's ELA Press Conference states:

When [the] first 4th grade test was given in 1999, only 48% of students achieved the standards. This year, 68% did.

In 1999, only 48% achieved standards in 8th grade. This year 57% did. 

And slide #6 from 2007's Commissioner's Math Press Conference states:

When the first 4th grade test was given in 1999, 67% of students met all the standards. This year, 80% did.

In 1999, 38% of 8th grade students met the standards. This year, 59% did.

Who's making comparisons now?!  Apparently the state doesn't believe it's own non-comparison disclaimers, though in 2008 it dropped comparisons to years prior to 2006.  

While I'm thinking about it, it takes multiple years of exam results to know whether the current results are a trend or an aberration, but even that may no longer be the case since persistent grade inflation now appears to have infected state exam outcomes.  This grade inflation is most likely directly related to a policy decision requiring a showing of constant improvement to bolster public support for public education, to boost educators' self-esteem and to avoid the undesirable consequences of the No Child Left Behind law for making inadequate yearly progress.

Statewide 4th-grade ELA performance

Statewide 4th-grade math performance

Statewide 8th grade ELA performance

Statewide 8th-grade math performance

In addition to showing S-G's performance on state exams by grade, the table, above, permits a comparison of the performance of cohorts across the years.  Simply follow a class on a diagonal line, as illustrated by the shaded cells in the table--keeping in mind the non-comparison disclaimer of the state (discussed above).

A couple of observations:  First, the 8-year pattern of the percentage of students passing exams generally declining from 3rd grade to 8th was disrupted this year.  This is a statewide phenomena.  It seems the state is doing something to prevent the appearance that performance declines the longer students are in school.  It probably has to do with the setting of cut-off scores, but it could be something else or a combination of several things.

Second, the test scores are supposedly scaled to permit comparisons between 1999 and 2005, and between 2006 and thereafter.  However, there's a lot of subjectivity in the process of making exams comparable--and even in the scoring of exams across districts.  To remove some of that subjectivity and improve the interpretation of performance-level changes, it's important to compare the percentage of students scoring in the performance levels above to S-G's mean and top-level state rankings in the first table.  For example, it appears that our 3rd-grade performance on the 2008 ELA exam slightly improved compared to 2007.  But the state rankings show that relative to other schools, our performance dramatically declined based on the mean and the percentage of our students scoring in the top level.  Whatever contributed to the apparent improvement affected other schools more positively than it did S-G.  Most likely, other schools were able to move more students into the top level than S-G did.

On the other hand, our performance on the 8th-grade ELA exam appears to have declined slightly.  But in checking the state rankings, we see that our standing in the state rose, even setting a record high for the percentage of students scoring in the top level.  Whatever contributed to our apparent decline on the 8th-grade ELA exam, other schools lost even more than S-G.  Hence our improvement in the state rankings.

Finally, it's important to remember that within small to moderately sized school districts, academic talent varies from one cohort to the next.  (Across the state, academic talent is practically constant from year to year).  This may partially account for variations in rankings and performance levels for the same grade from one year to the next.  That's a major reason why no one should rely on one year's data to determine if improvements or declines are real.  Changes in exam outcomes must be replicated over at least three years and ideally at least indirectly confirmed by national NAEP exams to know how much, if any, of the the change is real.

The following graphic shows the percentage of students passing the ELA and math exams based on the average for each school district in the capital region. To calculate the average, I added the percentage of students passing each exam and divided the total by the number of exams--12. The graph also shows the range of the percentage of students passing all of the exams. In general, the more narrow the range or variation of pass rates within a school district, the better or more consistent the quality of curricula across all grades.  The variation in S-G's passing scores is average for the area.

Niskayuna ranks at the top with an average of 91% of its students passing all the exams. Schenectady and Albany bring up the rear with a pathetic 54% average pass rate, but none-the-less an 8 percentage point increase from last year. Scotia-Glenville turned in an 82.5% pass rate--good enough for a middle ranking but above the region's average 79% pass rate.  Last year's average pass rate was 73%.

Change in Class Grade Point Average
From 3rd to 8th Grade 

The above graphic is new this year.  It shows the amount by which a class (cohort) can expect its grade point average to improve or decline from 3rd to 8th grade.  For example, the Mechanicville 3rd-grade class of 2006 had a GPA for math of 2.7.  By the time the class reaches the 8th grade, it can expect a GPA of 3.07.  Only 15% of New York school districts manage to keep class GPAs from falling from 3rd to 8th grade, and Mechanicville's improvement is 6th best in the state.

Scotia-Glenville doesn't do so well, ranking at the 21st percentile.  Our 3rd-graders had a math GPA of 3.07 in 2006.  By the time they reach the 8th grade in 2011, they can expect the class GPA to fall to 2.69.  That means the class GPA will fall from a B in 2006 to just above a C+ in 2011.  S-G and Mechanicville are practically opposites.  Mechanicville starts low and ends high while S-G starts high and ends low.  Galway and Guilderland see practically no change in class GPA as students move through the grades.  Burnt Hills' class GPA decline is average for the state.  But notice that S-G's decline is next to Troy's and just one away from Albany's.  How embarrassing is that?

I explain how I calculate GPA's below.  The way I calculate the change in class GPA is -- for each math and ELA exam, I calculate a cohort GPA, which for this year included the graduating classes of 2011 to 2016.  Starting with the GPA for the highest grade available to date, I subtracted the previous year's GPA on the test for the next previous grade available, and so-forth until I reached the lowest grade.  Then I divided the sum of these scores by the number of comparisons made and further divided by 2 (for two types of exams, ELA and math).  Then I multiplied the quotient times 5 for the five grades above the 3rd grade.  This product is the average change in class GPA between 3rd and 8th grade by cohort.  Then I added the average change for all 6 cohorts together and divided by 6 and that produced the district average for all cohorts, which is represented in the graphic, above.  It sounds cumbersome but its straightforward and easily done with statistical software.

4th-GRADE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESULTS

In the above chart, I answer the question, "How has the number of students performing in each level changed over time, assuming the same number of students took the exam each year?"  The number of students performing in each of the levels for 2008 are the actual numbers.  For prior years, the number of students performing in each level reflects the number of students who would have been placed in each level had the same number of students taken the test as in 2008.  I calculate these numbers using the percentages provided by the state for each performance level.  

Interpretation of Performance Levels:

Level 4 – exceeds the standards
Level 3 – meets all the standards
Level 2 – meets some of the standards or partially meets the standards
Level 1 – shows serious academic difficulties.

The above chart shows the percentage of students scoring in each level in each of the 41 NY capital district public schools with elementary schools.  The schools are arranged in order of the percentage of students passing the exam (scoring at Level 3 or 4) from most to least.  Scotia-Glenville is in 24th place--a substantial decline from last year's 6th placing but on par with its 2006 performance.  Its score is outlined in red.  As 3rd-graders, this cohort placed in the 24th spot last year.

The following graphic shows the grade point average for the capital district, which has been calculated by summing the scores for all pupils and finding the average by awarding 0.55 for Level 1, 1.7 for Level 2, 2.85 for Level 3 and 4.0 for Level 4.  The area GPA is then compared to the area low, the area high and Scotia-Glenville's GPA.  The graph shows that in 2007 S-G's 4th-graders leaped up from the area's mean, toward which they have been falling since 2000. But in 2008, the downward trend was confirmed with the lowest performance relative to the area's average the district has ever produced.  Whatever improvements related to pedagogical changes made last year, they apparently vanished this year.

8th-GRADE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESULTS

The above graphic shows that performance on the 8th-grade ELA exam degraded somewhat from last year's unprecedented improvement.  Over 3,800 students out of 9,742 didn't meet state standards in 2008.  Previously, the state changed the cut-off and scale scores on this exam, making the exam easier to pass.  See, e.g., NY Makes Huge Scoring Change to 8th Grade ELA Exam.  When factoring in all the changes, it appears that performance on this exam has really remained steady or declined since 2001 despite the appearance of an improvement, which has been 10 years in the making!

The above chart shows the percentage of students scoring in each level in each of the 41 NY capital district public schools with 8th grades. The schools are arranged in order of the percentage of students passing the exam (scoring at Level 3 or 4) from most to least.  Scotia-Glenville is in 20th place--three places above last year and five places above two years ago.  Its score is outlined in red. Despite the improvement, the middle school isn't getting the job done.  More than 30% of our students fail to meet standards on this exam.  Our students have the ability to do much better, and students are doing better on this exam in 40% of NY school districts.

The following graphic shows the grade point average for the capital district on the 8th-grade ELA exam, which is compared to the area low, the area high and Scotia-Glenville's GPA. The graph clearly shows that S-G's results meander around the area's average on the 8th-grade ELA exam, though this is the first time they have remained above the area's average for two years in a row.

4th-GRADE MATH RESULTS

In the above chart, I answer the question, "How has the number of students performing in each level changed over time, assuming the same number of students took the exam each year?"  The number of students performing in each of the levels is based on the number of students taking the test in 2008.  I calculate these numbers using the percentages provided by the state for each performance level.

Interpretation of Performance Levels:

Level 4 – exceeds the standards
Level 3 – meets all the standards
Level 2 – meets some of the standards or partially meets the standards
Level 1 – shows serious academic difficulties.

The above chart shows the percentage of students scoring in each level in each of the 41 NY capital district public schools with elementary schools.  The schools are arranged in order of the percentage of students passing the exam (scoring at Level 3 or 4) from most to least.  Scotia-Glenville is in 28th place--down 13 places from last year's 15th place.  S-G doesn't place nearly as many students in the top level as better performing schools.

The following graphic shows the grade point average for the capital district, which has been calculated by summing the scores for all pupils and finding the average by awarding 0.55 for Level 1, 1.7 for Level 2, 2.85 for Level 3 and 4.0 for Level 4.  The area GPA is then compared to the area low, the area high and Scotia-Glenville's GPA.  The graph shows that S-G's struggle to stay above the area's average performance was lost this year--and in a big way.  S-G's performance in 2007 was not as good as it was from 1999 to 2001 relative to other area schools, and this year's dip was S-G's worst ever.  60% of NY school districts had a higher mean score on this exam and 57% had a greater percentage of students scoring in the top level.

8th-GRADE MATH RESULTS

Most of the dramatic "improvement" shown in 8th-grade math this year is very likely due to changes made by the state in things like exam content, cut-off scores and the standards that define proficiency.  The odds that increased funding and better instruction were the sole causes of the improvement are extremely slight.  When you see a big jump in the percentage of students performing in the top level, that tells you something about the exam and/or scoring has changed.  The state says 'tisn't so.

The above chart shows the percentage of students scoring in each level in each of the 41 NY capital district public schools with 8th grades. The schools are arranged in order of the percentage of students passing the exam (scoring at Level 3 or 4) from most to least.  Scotia-Glenville is in 20th place--one place below last year, five places below the year before that and eight places below the year before that.  Its score is outlined in red. 

The following graphic shows the grade point average for the capital district on the 8th-grade math exam, which is compared to the area low, the area high and Scotia-Glenville's GPA. The progress that S-G had made in pulling away from the middle continues to diminish.

3rd, 5th, 6th & 7th Grade ELA & Math Graphics

Percentage Passing All ELA Exams in the Capital District

You'll notice that the percentage of students passing these exams tends to decline as students move from the lower to upper grades.  That's true statewide, with some exceptions. 

2008 3rd-Grade ELA School District Rankings

2008 5th-Grade ELA School District Rankings

2008 6th-Grade ELA School District Rankings

2008 7th-Grade ELA School District Rankings

Look at the distribution of scores on the above exam.  There are very few students scoring in either the top or the bottom levels.  That's an indicator that something is wrong with this exam.

Percentage Passing All Math Exams in the Capital District

For the past several years, S-G's math performance has been better than our ELA performance relative to the area's average pass rate and especially for the later grades.  Over the past two years, the variation in performance between these two exams seems to be diminishing, with an overall downward trend relative to other area school districts.

By the way,  take a look at the scores from the worst performing schools.  I'd like to know why people aren't rioting in the streets in these school districts, namely Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Watervliet, Green Island, Lansingburgh and a few more.  If these schools were charter schools, they'd be shut down permanently.

2008 3rd-Grade Math School District Rankings

2008 5th-Grade Math School District Rankings

2008 6th Grade Math School District Rankings

2008 7th-Grade Math School District Rankings

Area Average Pass Rate on All Exams by Grade

I've repeatedly said that S-G should be doing better than it is and this chart comes the closest to any I've seen of proving it.  Notice that an average of 27% of S-G's 8th-graders are being left behind.  That's atrocious.  The middle school was not just an experiment, but it was a predictably failed experiment.  We spent millions to convert the junior high to a middle school and added another $1 million or more to operations annually and what did we get for it?

Area GPA For All Exams

The next graphic shows the grade point average for the capital district on 3-8th-grade math and ELA exams, which is compared to the area low, the area high and Scotia-Glenville's GPA. The graph shows S-G's GPA made the biggest improvement ever in 2007 only to decline to the district's 2nd worst relative performance in 2008.  S-G's GPA ranks 23rd out of 41 area school districts.  It ranks 4th out of 6 in Schenectady County and 5th out of 7th if you count Burnt Hills.  More than anything, the chart proves the system produces the results it's designed to produce and only system change can dramatically improve academic outcomes.  10 years of state testing and this is all we have "gained." It's not worth the billions that have been spent.  Whatever else might be said, this is nowhere near the amount of improvement American students need to be globally competitive.  See here.  We need schools for The 21st Century Student.

2008 Statewide ELA Rank For S-G

In the graphics immediately above and below, I show S-G's statewide rankings on the ELA and math exams, respectively.  I also show the percentile scores for Burnt Hills and Schalmont.  Burnt Hills is interesting because we started out near its percentile ranks and fell below them.  Schalmont is interesting because it started out well below our percentile ranks and in recent years has nearly matched or exceeded them.

2008 Statewide Math Rank For S-G

2008 Statewide Overall Rank For S-G