NY to finally release all test scores that will show how kids performed during pandemic

Long-awaited test scores showing how students around New York state fared during the pandemic — and how city kids performed compared with state results — will finally be out in three weeks.

New York State Education Department officials set a Nov. 4 release date of reading and math results for third-through-eighth graders, months later than usual, according to a decision from state commissioner Betty Rosa.

The lag sparked outrage from activists demanding a first look at how school closures and the trauma of the pandemic impacted New York kids. Conservative watchdogs at the Empire Center for Public Policy are suing for the data. 

“The data should have been made public months ago — as it was each year in the past,” Peter Warren, director of research at the Empire Center, wrote in a blog post.

Statewide results are usually released in August or September but were delayed this year over what the education department said were changes to how it compiles the data. Officials have said families and schools were getting results sooner — and pushed back on a public data dump.

“NYSED has had the full exam results since it released them in tranches to parents and schools back in August,” said Warren.

“Its only rationale for not simultaneously making that data fully public in aggregate form (as it always did in the past) is its sudden, arbitrary and inexplicable decision in a June memo to re-designate it as ‘preliminary,’ and therefore unfit for public release (but still ok to give parents and schools),” he added.

But last month, education officials reversed course, allowing school districts to self-publish results. Yet the state data remained under embargo while officials said they were finalizing metrics and privacy protocols.

“Sadly, the withholding of this particular dataset is especially damaging because it contains information about the nature and extent of pandemic learning loss that should be informing the public debate over how that loss is remedied,” said Warren.

Emily DeSantis, a spokesperson for the agency, responded the “commissioner’s decision on the appeal settles this matter.”

The New York City Department of Education chose to release its own results Sep. 28, shortly after getting the green light.

The results were grim.

Math scores for city school kids took a nosedive during the pandemic — with only 38% of students scoring proficient last school year, the results showed.

English results painted a mixed picture, with scores improving for students in grades 6th through 8th. But the youngest learners — who were just learning to read and write during the worst of pandemic-era school disruptions — saw a substantial drop in English scores.

The statewide scores may help experts make sense of the major discrepancies in reading scores between the older grades and younger kids.

“It could be developmental,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education law and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “Kids didn’t do well during the pandemic learning to read, but the kids who knew how to read continued to be able to read at grade level.”

Bloomfield noted other possibilities as well — if teaching varied, if the state exams were written easier for the older grades or “an artifact of the test.”

“You’ll usually see if all the test scores went up statewide, that probably means it’s something in the test,” he said.