Posted on 08/16/2025 9:08:47 PM PDT by lowbridge
City officials are crowing over gains on the 2025 reading and math exams, but the state lowered the passing benchmarks for some students — raising questions about boasts of substantial academic progress, experts told The Post.
The tests, given statewide to NYC public school kids in grades 3 through 8, required third graders to get just 57% of questions correct on the English Language Arts exam to pass, down from 60% last year.
Fourth graders had to get 56% right, down from 65%, and 6th graders had to answer 57% correctly, down from 63%, according to a stunning analysis by the Times-Union.
The test-tinkering resulted in big improvements in NYC. Third-graders showed an 8.4 point increase in reading, with a whopping 63.6 % of students showing proficiency on the exam compared to 52.5% last year.
On the math exam, the state lowered the proficiency bar — Level 3 — from 56% to 54% for 3rd-graders, and from 54% to 51% for 4th-graders, the Albany-based newspaper reported, based on available data.
The tweaking occurred after test analysts found some questions on the 2025 exams more difficult than those on the 2024 exam, state education department spokeswoman Rachel Connors explained.
“If there is a greater or lesser number of difficult questions one year, the number of questions that must be answered correctly is adjusted,” she told the outlet. “This helps ensure that all tests in a subject are equated — no test is harder or easier to pass from year to year.”
Both ex-mayors Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio have trumpeted ballooning test-score gains that later deflated. In the most scandalous example, Bloomberg, who was seeking a third term and pushing state lawmakers to extend mayoral control of schools, hailed a huge rise in test scores from 2006 to 2009
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Related article
NYS changes minimum scores for student proficiency in math, English
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-lowers-bar-student-math-english-17841120.php
Just like they do with crime rates.
I wonder who “some students” are? 🤡
Another form of grade inflation. This is nothing more than child abuse.
You can manipulate and publish whatever statistics you care to put forth. The stark reality is that the majority of NYC public high school graduates are functionaly illiterate by any objective definition. They read and compute at a third grade level. Those that don’t “graduate” high school do even worse. Even if they remain law abiding and sober, productive, private enterprises cannot hire them. An important reason why many private businesses are abandoning NYC and other urban areas.
“Lies, damn lies, and statistics”
They did that years ago. It ain’t new.
Schools are adopting the Limbo Grading Theory:
“How Low Can You Go?”
Y’all want to guess the race of these kids they are
not educating?
Y’all want to guess the race of the kids that excel
despite Democrat party interference?
Y’all want to guess which kids have functional families?
No I didn’t think you did.
Having a functional family is far more important as a measure of a child’s success than race ever did.
Schools don’t raise kids. Parents DO!
Once upon a time we had quality education, two parent families and well behaved and respectful children. We also had corporal punishment. I say that the downfall of the education system is because of the removal of corporal punishment. Teachers used to be mothers who had finished raising their children and so went to teach. They understood the need for discipline.
Then they started licensing teachers and hiring only college graduates who had been taught to be teachers. These people knew better than parents how to raise kids and they created child protective services to stop parents from using corporal punishment to discipline their children. The discipline level in schools went down which made it difficult to teach children because now they were not afraid of what would happen when the father got home.
The only option is to lower the standards of education in order for teachers to be able to claim success at their work. Thus we get kids who are harder and harder to teach and teachers have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep kids in control. The kids have no desire to be controlled.
Oversimplified it’s true. I have been working in the school system for 3 decades and I have seen it happen. Not as a teacher thank God. I was able to visit classrooms and solve technical problems then leave. I have had to keep my mouth shut on many occasions to stay employed.
A lot of the problems come from families having only one parent who has to work so school is the daycare from morning until late afternoon. Breakfast lunch and dinner at school. The only role models are women teachers.
"Dees tests too hard! We now make 'em easier! 'Stead of gettin' one outta four questions right to pass, de kidz now need to get only turty puhcent right!"Idiocracy, here we come!
Regards,
This is why we have Supreme Court Justices that don’t understand high school level biology.
65% has always been passing
Idiocracy is here.
Brain dead democrats, Liberals and other Leftists have abandoned attempts to achieve “EQUITY” by pulling up the low performers.
No more stretch objectives.
No more striving for greatness.
No more seeking out the Best and Brightest.
Now they are dedicated to ensuring “EQUITY” by dragging everyone down to the the lowest common denominator.
High performers will be shunned, ostracized, banned, and even punished.
The children of Obeyme.
Correct.
Unfortunately.
Eventually, it will be lowered enough that a normal 5th grader could pass and graduate...with people asking if this is the new accepted level of society.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.