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New York spends more per student than any state in the nation.Yet fewer than half off of its third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students scored proficiently on the English Language Arts exam, according to the preliminary data released this week. Just 43% of third-graders, 48% of fourth-graders and 43% of fifth-graders scored proficient in ELA.The biggest drop was seen in fifth grade, a 14-point decrease from the 2024-25 school year.
Third-graders showed an 11-point drop.This is what happens when teacher unions get their way.Standards are lowered.
No consequences for bad schools or bad instructors.And our children? Failed by a system that doesn’t care.As of 2019, state test scores would no longer play a role in teacher evaluations.By 2024, nor would any measure of whether students learned at all.The state’s education department promised these changes would bring “reflection and goal-setting,” “collaboration among educators” and “personalized professional learning opportunities.”Nowhere was there mention of students learning.And of course, both were union victories.It gets worse.
After student performance dropped in 2023, the Board of Regents lowered the “cut scores,” making it easier for students to achieve proficiency in grades 3-8 in math and ELA.And this made the learning loss from the pandemic look smaller — to cover up the teacher’s union utter failure during COVID, including the terrible legacy of “remote learning.”This follows a pattern of incompetence by the New York State Department of Education in supporting improvement in instruction, and the outsourcing of most of that work to the New York State United Teachers.None of this is complicated to fix.Most states now screen every child in reading, starting in kindergarten. New York still does not require it, even after the state’s own task force recommended it in 2024.So, the third-grade test becomes the first time that Albany learns a child can’t read.New York also has a law a...