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THE STATE
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234 |
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TO: |
The Honorable the Members of the Board of Regents |
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FROM: |
James A. Kadamus |
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COMMITTEE: |
EMSC-VESID |
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TITLE OF
ITEM: |
Assessment: Data on Student Performance on Regents Exams |
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DATE OF
SUBMISSION: |
December 9, 2004 |
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PROPOSED
HANDLING: |
Discussion |
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RATIONALE FOR
ITEM: |
Policy Development |
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STRATEGIC
GOAL: |
Goals 1 and 2 |
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AUTHORIZATION(S): |
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SUMMARY:
In November, the Regents EMSC-VESID Committee developed a framework of five questions for discussion of assessment and graduation issues. In December, data are provided to support discussion of two of those questions: What is the effect of averaging scores on the five required Regents exams? What is the effect of permitting students to meet graduation standards if they pass four of the five required Regents exams?
To provide a context for discussion of these two questions, this report begins with an analysis of the Regents examination performance and educational outcomes of students who first entered grade 9 in the 2000-01 school year.
The attached analyses provide the
following information:
q An analysis of the cohort of students who first entered grade 9 in 2000-01.
q Performance of students in the 1996-2000 school accountability cohorts on Regents examinations in English and mathematics.
q The outcomes of students who first entered grade 9 in 2000-01.
q Data on Total Graduates and Ninth-Grade Retention.
q Regents examination performance of students who first entered grade 9 in 2000-01.
q Regents examination performance of general-education students who first entered grade 9 in 2000 by outcome on June 30, 2004.
q Patterns of Regents examination scores for students who first entered grade 9 in 2000.
Attachment
An Analysis
of the Cohort of Students Who First Entered Grade 9 in
2000
The Department’s System for Tracking Educational
Performance (STEP) has collected individual student records for all students in
grades 9-12 and younger students who take Regents examinations. These data now
allow us to follow the progress of virtually all students who first entered
grade 9 in the 2000-01 school year. The study of these students’ records
represents the most thorough and complete analysis of a cohort of New York State
students ever presented. We are now able to account for more students because we
collect individual student data records that allow us to link all reported State
assessment data with the educational outcome for each student. In 2005-06, we will begin implementing
an enhanced data collection system that includes statewide unique identifiers
for each student, thus allowing us to make these linkages even when the student
transfers across districts. This full implementation of the enhanced
data-collection system will allow us to report graduation rate and examination
results with increasing accuracy.
This study includes students who first enrolled
in grade 9 during the 2000-01 school year (or were ungraded and reached their
seventeenth birthday during that school year) and who were enrolled in a public
school in New York State in at least part of the 2001-02, 2002-03, or 2003-04
school years and for whom a district submitted a STEP record in August 2004;
that is, students in the 2000 cohort.
The 2004 STEP file included records for 222,720
students reported to have first entered grade 9 in 2000. Of those records,
199,312 reported students who had graduated, dropped out, entered a general
education development (GED) program, or were still enrolled in the district as
of June 30, 2004.
Records for 23,408 students reported that the
student had transferred to another district at some time between first entering
grade 9 in the 2000-01 school year and June 30, 2004. These records were
believed to be duplicates of records reported by the districts to which the
students transferred. Therefore, records ending in transfers to another district
were not included in the study.
The population studied was 199,312 students who
were reported to the Department as first entering grade 9 in the 2000-01 school
year, and who had graduated, earned an Individualized Education Program (IEP)
diploma, dropped out, entered a GED program, or were still enrolled in a
district on June 30, 2004. The number of students in this study compares
favorably with the number of students tested on the middle-level English
language arts (ELA) and mathematics tests in the spring of 2000. Members of the
2000 cohort were in grade 8 at that time and 196,501 took the ELA assessment;
198,512 took the mathematics assessment. Some students did not take the
middle-level assessments because of absence, exemption through their
individualized education program or eligibility for an alternative measure for
limited English proficient students.
Conclusions
The results of these analyses of the 2000 cohort
after four years of high school (that is, as of June 30, 2004) are as follows:
§
Statewide, 92
percent of general-education students who took all five Regents exams achieved a
score of at least 55, and 77 percent achieved a score of at least 65.
These students completed the coursework needed to prepare for the
required Regents examinations in the first four years of high school.
§
A total of 67.4
percent of all students (general-education students and students with
disabilities) graduated with a local or Regents diploma in four years as of June
30, 2004. Another 1.4 percent received an IEP diploma. Over 17 percent were
still enrolled, 12 percent dropped out, and 2 percent entered a GED program.
Graduation data for previous cohorts suggest that the graduation rate will
increase to 74 percent for this group as of June 2005.
§
The data cannot be
directly compared to previous years because the improved data collection system
collects data on more students in the cohort. However, the total
number of graduates (from this and all other cohorts) has increased each year
since 1995-96. The number of graduates increased from 143,818 in 2002-03 to
153,202 in 2003-04.
§
The vast majority
of students who dropped out or entered GED programs did not take Regents exams
during the four years before June 30, 2004. Very few general-education students
who dropped out or entered GED programs took Regents exams and scored between 0
and 54. The percentage of dropouts who scored 0-54 ranged from 3 percent for U.
S. history and government to 12 percent for mathematics.
§
Of the 178,050
general-education students, 17,690 (10 percent) had no reported Regents exam
scores in four years, 29,166 (16 percent) took between one and four Regents
exams, and 130,924 (74 percent) took all five required Regents
exams.
§
Why had so many
students not taken the five required Regents examinations after four years of
high school? Under-performing middle schools left many students unprepared for
some or all of their high school courses. In 2000, when students in this cohort
took the middle-level ELA and mathematics assessments, 13.4 percent of students
statewide—and 23.6 percent of students in New York City—scored at Level 1 on the
ELA assessment. Comparable Level 1 percentages on the mathematics assessment
were 25.1 percent statewide and 44.3 percent in New York City. These Level 1
students needed remedial courses before starting the courses covering the
Regents curriculum. In all likelihood, many of these students failed courses and
may need five or six years to graduate.
§
Students who first
entered grade 9 in 2000-01 relied less on the 55-64 score range in all subjects
except mathematics to meet graduation requirements than students in previous
cohorts. For example, the percentage of school accountability cohort members
scoring 55-64 in English fell from 9.5 to 5.6 percent between the 1999 and 2000
cohorts.
§
Very few students
who had taken examinations during the four years had failing scores at the end
of the fourth year of high school. Statewide, the percentage of students
(general-education students and students with disabilities) scoring 0-54 on each
exam ranged from 3 percent in U.S. history and government to 9 percent in
mathematics.
§ Four years after entering grade 9, large numbers of students who attended New York City schools, students with disabilities, and limited English proficient (LEP) students had not been tested on the five required Regents exams. From 29 to 38 percent of all New York City students had not taken each of the five examinations. About 40 percent of LEP students and students with disabilities had not taken each examination.
§ Fewer students scored at Level 1 on the middle-level assessments in 2004 than in 2000. Further, fewer students are being held back in grade 9 each year. The percentage held back has declined from 20.1 percent in 1998 to 14.9 percent in 2003, the last year for which data are available. These factors indicate that more students are prepared for high school work.
Performance of Students in
the 1996-2000 School Accountability Cohorts on Regents Examinations in English
and Mathematics
Not all students that first entered grade 9 in
2000-01 met the requirements for inclusion in a school accountability cohort,
the cohort that SED uses to determine Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for high
schools. To put the performance of these students in historical context, Table 1
compares the performance of students who were members of a 2000 school
accountability cohort with the performance of past school accountability
cohorts. Of the 199,312 students in this study, 169,823 (85.2 percent) met the
criteria for membership in a school accountability cohort.
Table 1 provides a summary of the percentages of
school accountability cohort members who achieved scores of 55-100 and 65-100 on
the Regents English and mathematics examinations for the 1996 through 2000
cohorts. No mathematics data are provided for the 1996 cohort, since students in
that cohort were not required to take a Regents mathematics examination to earn
a local diploma. Statistics are provided for general-education students,
students with disabilities, and all cohort members. Cohort membership increased
over these years, particularly for students with disabilities. The number of
students with disabilities in the 2000 cohort was 53 percent greater than the
number in the 1996 cohort. This increase can be attributed to more accurate and
inclusive reporting of students with disabilities in the cohort as well as
refinements in the cohort definition. Students with disabilities working toward
Individualized Education Program Diplomas were excluded from the 1996 cohort.
Students with disabilities who were eligible to take the New York State
Alternate Assessment were excluded from the 1997 through 1999 cohorts. It is
reasonable to assume that high-performing students with disabilities were
included in the early cohorts and students added in later cohorts were more
severely disabled.
In English, the percentage of general-education
cohort members scoring 65 or higher increased between the 1996 and 2000 cohorts,
from 74.5 to 83.2 percent, while the percentage scoring between 55 and 64
decreased from 15.5 percent to 5.1 percent. In mathematics, the percentage
scoring 65 or higher decreased slightly and the percentage of students scoring
55-64 increased slightly between the 1997 and 2000 cohorts. The percentage of
students with disabilities scoring 65 or higher in English was higher in the
2000 cohort than in any previous cohort, despite the larger number of these
students included in the cohort. The percentage of students with disabilities
scoring 65 or higher in mathematics was over nine percentage points lower in the
2000 cohort than in the 1997 cohort.