New York State put in mandatory, state wide standardized tests in 1999. The tests were originally for fourth and eight grade Math and English.

More than half of S-VE students fail the 8th grade English test 75% of the time. This triggered the State to declare our middle school a "school in need of improvement “ in 2002. Those schools are monitored by the state and are two steps from being closed.

We are doing better in math. The administration makes excuses for the poor results in English by saying that the bad results are caused by kids from poor families. . My question is: If the students are indeed such numskulls that they cannot be taught English, why are the same students doing much better in Math?  The Board has rejected my efforts to improve the teacher pool, but that is clearly the problem, and hundreds of students would have been better off if the board would have followed my lead. 

See how much better our kids are doing in fourth grade English than in 8th grade!    The longer the kids are in our schools the worse they do!

Fourth grade math is the one subject that our schools have been competitive with the state average. I hope that the drop in 2006 is temporary as we fell behind the state passing average of 78%.