When does a 30% correct response equals a 65% passing rate? Only in New York State. It seems that every year the New York State Education Department (NYSED) reduces the cut scores so that more students can pass the Algebra 1 Regents. This year NYSED reduced the amount of answers a student needs to answer correctly to 26 out of 86 questions, that comes out to a 30% rate. The lowest since the State has been using this version of the Algebra 1 Regents exam.
The reason for the NYSED's lowering the cut scores is to achieve a minimum passing rate in the Algebra 1 Regents. Not that the exam was made harder but because the State is under pressure to reduce the academic/racial achievement gap and to increase the graduation rate. Therefore, the NYSED must increase the curve to a point where educators question the academic merit of the Algebra 1 Regents exam's minimum passing rate.
Here are the cut scores necessary to achieve a minimum passing rate from 2014, when the present day Algebra 1 Regents exam was introduced to New York State students.
Year..................Correct Answers.........Percentage
2014..........................31...........................34.6%
2015..........................30...........................34.9%
2016..........................30...........................34.9%
2017..........................27...........................31.4%
2018..........................26...........................30.2%
For every 1 point drop in the cut scores, it's estimated that an additional 10% of students will attain the minimum passing grade of 65%. That means since the Algebra 1 Regents exam was changed in 2014, approximately 50% more students passed the test.
You can read more about this in the New York Post. You can also read my post last year on the lowered cut scores Here.
DWARKA had 11 percent passing Algebra I, Geometry 3 percent, Algebra II 9 percent. I wonder what happened to that school. I know there is no nore experienced teachers left.
ReplyDeleteAn epic fraud!
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why many of the Catholic high schools in NYC (and some of the elite public high schools) now have their own placement tests for incoming freshmen who took the Algebra regents as 8th graders. They know that a passing grade doesn't necessarily mean they are ready to go into geometry. They now have the option in some schools to retake the course, and not take the Regents if they choose not to.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s next, sign your name and pass? No wait, they can’t do that. Please print your name for full credit on this and all Regents exams. Honestly if you were a parent would you send your kid to a NYC public school that wasn’t a Bronx Science? Now that idiot and his Mariachi player want to destroy that as well. I would home school my kid first. Unfortunately, this is how Charter schools will win in the end.
ReplyDelete"Not that the exam was made harder but because the State is under pressure to reduce the academic/racial achievement gap and to increase the graduation rate."
ReplyDeleteAfter 60 years of education reform and hundreds of billions of dollars spent (wasted) racial minorities have not risen much in academic standing. Are the teachers racists? Liberals now say that's the reason for the continued gap, having exhausted every other excuse.
For that reason, Leftists have been attacking teachers with increasing ferocity, even though most teachers, especially those in their 20s, are somewhere left of Che Guevara!
Ironic, isn't it? Now teachers are being punished with 'cultural competency' training, 'restorative circles,' 'retraining,' 'common core' nonsense, Danielson's cudgel, er, I mean rubric, increased firings, psy-op terrorizing from cruel admins who are told we are the real problem, and all the rest...
After they finish destroying the teaching profession and all kids do is learn 'online' with 'facilitiators' (minders) instead of teachers teaching, then what will they blame? - Racist computer algorithms! Oh wait, they already are doing that!
The real problem is that some cultures value book learning more than others. End of story!
At my school the pass rate is real low on this test. The students (all low-income immigrants from south of the border) largely cannot do two and three digit addition, no joke, and they are asked to do algebra.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for them that we cannot build their math skills from where they are at, but that is how it is now.
Controll the education system and you control the minds of our future .
ReplyDeleteGet rid of senior teachers and their will be no education for children .
No education for the poor and the rich will be educated .
Keep the status quo.
And then you have Principals like Dwarka chsnging grades, and you have a perfect storm.
ReplyDeleteHey Dwarka, what was your earth science passing rate this year? Less than 25% I bet.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened with all the bad experienced teachers getting good results.
Delete10:52, you are on to something. The fact is that Progressives hate reality, and will do everything they can to alter very obvious & painful truths. They project racism on to every instance of "disparity" between groups of people, not wanting to face the hard questions that emerge. For one example, libs such as Norm of Ed Notes Online presents faulty reasoning to explain how disparities in arrest recordes for smoking weed prove racism in society. He uses as his "proof" that studies show whites & blacks admitting to smoking weed at the same rate, but blacks are then arrested at higher rates based on crime stats. What he ignores (willfuly) is that the study is not about smoking in public, which is what gets a person arrested. No matter, quality of life in NYC will go further down because they don't want to arrest blacks for smoking weed in public. Same with the specialized High School. Must be racism keeping the scores down, can't ever be the hip-hop subculture which downplays education, or the lack of a two-parent home, or the feeling of resentment which is inculcated in minorities. Dumbing down tests & cirriculum, removing almost all discipline measures, and fake passing rates is killing public education, but Progressives still refuse to see the disasters inflicted on the groups it claims to champions.
ReplyDeleteHello I just read this piece and am wondering where I live in Westchester county if we are in the same category with the Algebra 1 regents. The middle school 8th graders had a 100% pass rate so I am wondering if this article relates to us too? I apologize because I really do not know but am assuming yes because we are obviously under NYSED also. So did the kids just need 26 out of 86 correct questions to "pass" the Algebra 1 regents outside of NYC as well?
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:38
ReplyDeleteIt sure does. All NYS students take the same Algebra 1 Regents and the cut scores are the same as well.
As thry push experienced teachers out, our schools get worse.
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:38- 8th graders who take the Algebra 1 Regents are generally "accelerated" and more motivated than some high schoolers. We had a 100% pass rate as well (NYC school), although the scores are considerably lower than usual (highest grade 87, with lots of grades in the 70s- unusual for us).
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke! A nation in crisis
ReplyDeleteDwarka is bringing the school to the ground.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the new Chamcellor will noticed.
DeleteYet, Dwarka graduation is improving year after year. And this is all that is matter to the DOE and the media.
ReplyDeleteImproving because she likes to change grades, and give credits as candy. Little by little she keeps destroying the school.
DeleteAre we at the point yet that my labradoodle could pass the Algebra 1 Regents? If not, could someone build a model to predict when that would be. I'd say he is about average in math skills for a labradoodle.
ReplyDeleteMy principal we are getting the poor students ready for jail.
ReplyDeleteIn school the children learn when to eat,
when to go to the bathroom, walk down long hallways
and when to etc.
In jail we teach the inmate when to eat
when to go to the bathroom, walk down long hallways and when to etc.
We must educate the students and change this cycle.
This is America the best country that that I Love.
You guys: "Don't tie our performance rating to tests!"
ReplyDeleteAlso you guys: "They're lowering standards so more kids pass? What an outrage!"
what grade is a 37 out of 86?
ReplyDeleteWe are Regents Preparation Online, designed to encourage students for practicing past regents’ examination questions to recognize breaches.
ReplyDelete