Educators and Advocates Respond to Preliminary State Assessment Data

Evan Stone, Chief Executive Officer of Educators for Excellence, issued the following statement in response to the New York State Education Department’s release of preliminary English Language Arts and Mathematics assessment data:

“The New York State Education Department’s release of preliminary assessment data, and the decline in statewide elementary reading scores, doesn’t change what educators and national research have consistently shown: achieving 100% literacy requires high-quality instructional materials, paired with strong implementation and improvement shaped by educators.

“No single measure should be the basis for judging an instructional strategy. We can’t ignore the drop, but it also means we shouldn’t erase the abundance of other evidence, such as teachers’ perceptions and citywide screener data – the tool teachers use to assess progress, is nationally normed, and not subject to shifting cut scores – which shows continued growth in reading. The consistent multi-year gains in math results across grade levels are encouraging and shows that New York’s continued focus on improving instruction and use of high quality instructional materials is the right strategy.

“Before anyone treats these preliminary results as final, the State Education Department must publish the full picture. That includes the distribution of students across all four performance levels and the year-over-year raw-score thresholds associated with each level. Families and educators deserve enough information to distinguish genuine changes in student learning from changes related to scoring or shifting proficiency targets.”

Erica Boyce, a New York City elementary school educator, issued the following statement: 

“Investments in high-quality instructional materials across the state, such as New York City’s NYC Reads initiative, must continue and push further. We need to advance the critical work of strengthening professional development to support the needs of all learners. These are long-term transformations, not quick fixes, and this preliminary data doesn’t change that. These results should push us to listen to educators and strengthen implementation of ongoing efforts where needed.”

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