General News
City’s 8th-graders score in middle in national writing test
Apr 10, 2008 11:21 AM
New York City 8th-graders scored at about the average for major U.S. cities in a first-ever comparison of their writing skills with 8th-graders in other cities.
Boston and the smaller Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., did better than New York. Other major cities, including Chicago, Atlanta, Austin and San Diego, scored about the same as New York, while Los Angeles and Houston did a little worse.
New York often outperforms other cities on national tests, and the middling results led to questions about the city’s middle school curriculum.
“These findings prove that a strong curriculum in schools is a better path to higher academic performance than endless testing, and they show that school districts cannot test prep students into developing higher-order thinking skills,” said UFT President Randi Weingarten.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress writing test was given to samples of 8th- and 12th-graders for the first time since 2002. Results showed that the nation’s 8th-graders improved in writing over both 2002 and 1998, with 88 percent performing at or above the “basic” level of proficiency.
Eighty percent of New York City’s 8th-graders performed at or above “basic.”
This was the second time that results had been reported separately for most major cities, but New York’s 2002 results were disqualified due to problems with the sample size that year. Thus, 2007 was, in effect, the city’s first participation in the city-by-city comparison.
“We know we have a qualified teaching force in New York City and that principals are taking on more responsibility,” said Weingarten. “And even though we support promotional gates for 8th-graders, that is not enough.”
Weingarten said the school system must provide the resources needed to bolster education in middle schools and implement the middle school reforms called for by the Coalition for Educational Justice.
“Far more work is needed at the middle school level to make education rigorous and engaging,” she added, “such as broadening the curriculum, lowering class size and ensuring that students get the individualized attention they need. We also must give teachers the professional latitude they need as well as the means to adjust instruction for this challenging age group.”
