LCS officials appeal to parents for help with test participation
by ALAN RIZZO Reporter - Lancaster Bee
Because Lancaster Central has not met state requirements for student participation in standardized testing, administrators issued a plea at a Board of Education meeting on Monday to the district’s parents, hoping they will allow their children to be assessed this spring.
During a presentation that involved six administrators, Michele Ziegler, Lancaster’s director of instructional technology services and accountability, reported that while test performance among students in Lancaster meets state requirements, participation does not, and that deficiency is putting the district in danger of being labeled a failure.
She indicated that New York requires that 95 percent of students take and pass state tests in mathematics and English language arts in grades three through eight. Ziegler said the percentages are the same for Regents testing at the high school level and are at 80 percent for science testing in grades four and eight, and for overall graduation.
“Anything less in any one of these percentages, and we can be flagged,” she said, also reporting that because the district has not met state Adequate Yearly Progress goals for elementary and middle school math, ELA and science testing, students could struggle in high school with state testing. “Our concern is that if fewer students are taking the standardized tests in grades three through eight, then they will have difficulty with the standardized tests when they get to the secondary level.”
Karen Marchioli, director of elementary education for LCS, reported that last year, only 50 percent of students in grades three through eight took ELA tests, and math was even lower at 47 percent.
She said the lack of participation limits the usefulness of testing data for local administrators like her, who use it to adjust curriculum, track student progress and evaluate teachers.
Marchioli said it also limits local decision-making power, if Lancaster is put on a federal or state list of underperforming schools or districts in terms of testing.
“It takes away the ability for us to spend money the way we want,” she said. “We are told that we have to do certain things, and put certain staff members in certain places.”
Responding to the presentation, board President Patrick Uhteg argued to parents that district administrators are on their side when it comes to state testing changes and do not use data as a “be all, end all.”
“To bring students and parents back to the table, we have to convince them that the assessments are a work in progress,” he said. “We have educational reforms coming from the state and federal government, and that’s not going away. But whatever tests are put in front of our students, the data we receive from those tests is going to be used with a scrutinizing eye and as a means to an end, and the end is always to have the best instruction, the best education for our students that we can.”