Several elected New York officials called for the city school's Chancellor Joel Klein to put a hold on some of his signature accountability policies.
Longstanding opposers of the chancellor rallied around the outskirts of his Manhattan offices as part of a campaign against the Mr. Klein.
The New York's Department of Education downplayed the demands of the rallying groups.
"We will continue to hold schools accountable for performance," said Natalie Ravitz, the Mr. Klein's press secretary.
"Delaying necessary reform, even for one year, will only hurt our kids and take us backward. Now is the time for all of us to double down on our efforts."
Ms. Ravitz said that the Department of Education has making an effort to increase instruction time and encourage more teacher groups to team up and focus on the students who are performing at the lowest levels. She added that 60% of the teachers currently do participate in these meetings. The goal is now 90%.
Another motive for the DOE is to offer more NY SAT prep opportunities for students. There have been studies that show drastic improvements among students who pursue preliminary test classes, such as ACT and SAT prep courses.
Increasing the opposition against Mr. Klien was a result of a questionable decision to hike the standards to pass statewide tests. After raising the bar, student proficiencies dropped substantially in math and English.
In New York City, students scoring proficient in English dropped to 42% from 69% in 2009. In math, this year 54% scored at proficient level, down from 82%. The numbers imply a need for further SAT Prep among students.
From a different voice, the city can attribute to many other measures that display progression in student proficiencies under Mr. Klein's role. These areas include better performance on nationwide exams and in comparison with city students throughout the rest of New York.
Mr. Klein still seemed to acknowledge the issues deriving from the new proficiency standards, contradicting his motives to have the levels raised for years.
"We are really frustrated," said executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, an organization with a history of disagreements with the city Department of Education. The director as well as others described a skewed system to standardized exams emphasizing the necessity for more http://www.esctestprep.com/new-york-ny-sat-test-prep-new-york-ny.htm">New York SAT prep courses. In addition to the contributing factors is an overreliance on testing to make critical decisions regarding the educational well-being of children, schools and educators. The rallying groups chanted: "Less testing, more teaching."
The groups in opposition of the chancellor have hired a PR firm to voice their stand more aggressively.
In the recent past, the rally groups succeeded in shutting down a Department of Education meeting, stalling significant votes that were planned to take place.
Mr. Klein's foes are hammering the application of state test results to critical educational decisions, such as school's progress reports where they are assigned a letter grade. Critics of the report's label them "scarlet letters" and claim they unrighteously brand the proficiencies of students as well as teachers. Opposers say the change in proficiency standards should delay Mr. Klien in using standardized exam scores to assign school's a letter grade.
Educational experts say the progress reports, although not a perfect measure of performance, display some promise. Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think-tank, Marcus Winters, said "Schools that had low grades actually responded by doing better." Additionally, he said the Department of Education re-assesses the measures and improves on the reports on a yearly basis. "Abandoning a policy as we're gaining evidence that it's effective would be a very bad idea." he adds
The creator of the progress reports, James S. Liebman, noted the problem at hand comes down to accountability.
"Most people don't like to be evaluated if they can avoid it," said Mr. Liebman, who departed from the Department in 2009. "There are a group of people who have opposed reform from the start for that reason and are misinterpreting this new information as support for their old self-serving arguments. But the kids deserve to know how well their schools are working."
In the meantime, more opportunities for students to improve their standardized test scores are popping up. Taking advantage of NY SAT prep classes have shown to pay dividends for the college-bound students.
