One very disadvantaged school district in Yonkers (NY) is doing well on the state standardized exams, and enquiring minds would like to know why:
Seventy-seven percent of Yonkers elementary school students are now meeting the state's standards. That's compared to 79 percent of all elementary schools statewide -- including other large urban districts such as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
And results released in June show fourth-grade English test scores climbed from less than 34 percent of students meeting the state standards in 1999 to 65 percent this year.
From the press release:
A sample of the most improved schools, when contacted by the State Education Department, gave these reasons for improvement: an all-out district or schoolwide effort to improve achievement, hiring of math instruction specialists, intensive staff development focusing on math instruction, an improved curriculum in line with the standards, teaching math more every day, setting targets for improvement, using the achievement data to help individual students, grouping students flexibly by achievement level to give them the help they need, and before- and after-school help.
Emphasis mine. Hoorah.
Posted by kswygert at October 11, 2004 04:15 PM