Drilling fundamentals paid off. But the "educators" don't like it.
The New York Times
June 12, 2005
What Lifted Fifth-Grade Scores? Schools Say Lots of Hard Work
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and SUSAN SAULNY
In September, Guy Tantillo stood before his fifth-grade class at Public School 45 in South Ozone Park, Queens, and warned his students that they were about to begin a school year like no other.
"Fourth grade was very difficult, but fifth grade is going to be the biggest challenge in your lives," he told Class 5-212. "What got you through fourth grade is not going to get you through fifth grade."
As he recalled that ominous pep talk last week, Mr. Tantillo and the giddy students swirling around him in the schoolyard had every reason to bask in the spring sunshine. At P.S. 45, the number of fifth graders at or above grade level in reading nearly doubled from last year, and it more than doubled in math.
Citywide, the gains on this year's standardized reading and math tests were so outsized - particularly among fifth graders, who improved 19.5 percentage points in reading and 15.2 percentage points in math - that they left some education experts, not to mention Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's political opponents, skeptical.
That skepticism was only reinforced by opinion polls and teacher surveys in recent months that found relatively little optimism among parents and educators for Mr. Bloomberg's effort to fix the schools, which they said had mostly caused upheaval.
But in interviews at P.S. 45 and other schools across the city with large increases in test scores, principals, parents, superintendents, teachers and students offered this most basic explanation: They worked hard.
Even at these schools, educators and parents said the changes of the past three years had been tumultuous. But they also said the efforts had begun to pay off.
Principals and teachers described a relentless focus on literacy and math and a ceaseless scrutinizing of tests, quizzes and writing samples to understand which skills the students had mastered and which lessons had somehow fallen short.
Educators also said that the intense pressure, which began just before the start of school with Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that his get-tough promotion rules would be extended to fifth graders, had been felt not just by the students, but throughout the school system and by parents.
At P.S. 45, fifth graders were offered an after-school program, classes on Saturdays and classes during vacations. Teachers sent home monthly progress reports listing test results and detailed assessments of class work and homework, including book reports and other writing assignments.
To push every class to keep pace with the citywide reading curriculum, the regional superintendent's office sent P.S. 45 and other schools a detailed calendar, specifying a literary genre to focus on each month, like autobiography or mystery, and weekly skills like making inferences.
The principal and assistant principals met at least weekly with teachers to go over student work and trial tests, and to select specialized programs for them, like intensive phonics. A detailed portfolio was kept on each child and two veteran teachers were designated as intervention specialists who moved from class to class to work one on one with struggling students.
A school official telephoned parents regularly to keep attendance high, and the school ran workshops to train parents on how to help their children.
Most important, said the principal, Evelyn Terrell, smaller classes, of 18 to 22 children, allowed for more personal instruction. In previous years, fifth-grade classes had had 30 or more students.
From school to school, principals and other officials did not agree on any one primary reason for the gains.
In part, the sharp increases reflect the way the tests are presented. The results focus on whether students are above or below grade level rather than on their underlying scores. In recent years, thousands of students had scored just below grade level, and this year many of them finally cleared the line.
But even with this year's unprecedented increases, only half the city's students were proficient in reading and math. In Grades 3 to 8, 51.8 percent performed at or above grade level in reading this year - demonstrating how far Mr. Bloomberg still has to go in his effort to fix the schools.
And the gains in other grades were by no means uniform. While 36 schools had gains in reading of 23 percentage points or more, 35 had overall declines. Meanwhile, eighth-grade reading scores actually dropped, raising questions about whether gains in the elementary grades are lost before high school.
Still, principals and other officials insist that this year's scores reflected real achievement, a result of increased spending on many initiatives. Some practices were new this year, like the Saturday classes in fifth grade. Other initiatives are nearly a decade old, like New York State's push to widen the availability of prekindergarten.
"Looking at the scores, someone said to me, 'This is a miracle,' " said Laura Silver, the principal of P.S. 146 in East Harlem, where the number of fifth graders reading on grade level jumped 34 percentage points. "I thought, it's not a miracle. It was hard work."
While the mayor and the chancellor said the Saturday classes were a major factor for fifth graders, Ms. Silver said she believed her students had benefited most from an extended school day, with an extra 90 minutes of instruction twice a week.
Of the test scores, a misty-eyed Ms. Silver said: "I am a very even, stable person, but when I saw the scores, I began to cry."
Norma Caraballo, the principal of P.S. 38 in East Harlem, said a combination of new programs and improved instructional practices had propelled students to higher levels of achievement - in her school's case, a 28.1-percentage point jump in fifth graders reading at or above grade level.
"I don't think it's any one thing," she said. "It's a lot of things." Critics of standardized testing contend that the intense pressure on principals and teachers to raise scores turned the schools into test preparation mills and that subjects like science, art and social studies are being sacrificed. More than half the city's principals are now untenured and could be removed for low scores.
Parents said that fear of being forced to repeat a grade was a great motivator for children as well.
"They put a lot of pressure on them," said Doreen Lipkin, whose son, Anthony Cuomo, is a fifth grader at P.S. 146. "They read newspapers. They listen to the news. They knew what was going on. It scared them and it really made them work harder."
Ms. Lipkin said that Anthony had attended Saturday classes and after-school tutoring and that she was pleased with the results: he scored on grade level in reading and far above grade in math.
Ms. Lipkin said she had initially had reservations about school on Saturdays. "These kids do need a break, they're only children," she said. "But after seeing how well they did on the tests, I honestly agree with them having the Saturday classes," she said.
Aracelia Cook, whose daughter, Cierra, is in Mr. Tantillo's class at P.S. 45, said the Saturday classes required sacrifice by students and parents alike. "I was getting up on Saturday mornings, when I did not want to get up, to take her over there because I knew the advantage," she said.
Ms. Cook said that her daughter scored below grade in reading and math last year. This year, she scored nearly at grade level in reading and above grade level in math.
"She went to the Saturday school, she went to the after school, and it paid off," Ms. Cook said. "The extra things - if people took advantage of it - there's no way their child didn't rise."
Mr. Tantillo said his students had responded to extra pressure. "It's just the kids' mentality, being focused since September, knowing that they have a job to do," he said. "It's setting higher expectations in my class. That's what I do. They worked hard. They made my job easy."
At P.S. 45, in addition to sending parents monthly progress reports, each grade sent home a monthly newsletter to let parents know what skills their children were working on. "We stepped it up," said Paul Sibblies, the assistant principal in charge of fifth grade at P.S. 45. "The mayor is holding us accountable for these things." He added that he was constantly observing classes, making his presence felt to teachers and students.
"My teachers will tell you they are tired of me," he said. "But I also write my teachers letters when they do a phenomenal job."
Across the city, gains were strongest in some of the most impoverished and historically lowest-performing districts. And many educators said the results showed that better achievement was possible, even in schools with large numbers of the most challenging students.
At P.S. 146, about one-third of the 610 students are designated for special education services, making this year's gains all the more striking, Ms. Silver said.
Ms. Terrell, the P.S. 45 principal, said that more than 10 percent of her school's children lived in a nearby homeless shelter and that a family assistant on her staff, Gladys Rivera, was crucial in reaching out to their families and keeping attendance high.
Of the city's 10 instructional regions, the gains in both reading and math were steepest in Region 5, where P.S. 45 is.
The region stretches from Ocean Hill-Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn out to Howard Beach and the Rockaways in Queens, areas that include some of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city.
Kathleen M. Cashin, the regional superintendent, said that teachers, principals and higher-level administrators had worked as a team to tip the scales in favor of New York's most disadvantaged children.
Dr. Cashin said that both educators and children had responded to higher expectations. "You put yourself out there continuously with the message of hope, with the message that we can do this," she said.
But while educators said they were apprehensive about the ability to make similar strides next year, especially because the citywide tests are ending in favor of statewide tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind Law, they were also encouraged that children in the youngest grades were doing more advanced work than ever.
"The data was predictable," Ms. Silver said. "We didn't need the test scores to know how far our kids had come. Our kindergartners are reading and writing. Four or five years ago, our third graders weren't reading." |
