10 LI schools join PISA international testing standards

Ten Long Island high schools have joined a worldwide movement to test students using international standards that match local teenagers against counterparts in Shanghai, China, in Finland and in other high-scoring spots around the globe.

Schools in Roslyn, Herricks, Plainview-Old Bethpage and Carle Place all reported scores that exceeded both national and international averages on exams known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA.

Since it began testing in 2000, the Paris-based PISA program has been widely cited by the world's school leaders, including U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as a barometer of student performance.

Roslyn's superintendent, Dan Brenner, pointed to test results as evidence that his students can excel when compared with the world's best.

On a PISA test in reading, a sample group of Roslyn 15-year-olds earned an average scaled score of 591 -- well above the 556 average recorded in Shanghai, which has stood atop international testing charts in recent years.

"We're always happy to beat China at something," said Daniel Friedfeld-Gebaide, a junior at Roslyn High School. He was among 48 students at the school who participated last winter in the most recent PISA tests in reading, math and science.

Score comparisons are inexact. Shanghai is China's largest metropolis and business hub, with a public school enrollment of 1.8 million students. Roslyn enrolls 3,200 students and is tucked into an affluent suburban corner of North Hempstead Town.

Still, many Long Island educators contended that local scores on international exams serve as worthwhile reminders that the region's students can hold their own in the global arena.

"On average, our students performed at world-class levels," said Jack Bierwirth, superintendent of the Herricks district in New Hyde Park and a leading advocate of high-quality student testing. Bierwirth is co-chair of a committee on assessments for the State Council of School Superintendents.

PISA is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which encourages world trade and includes most industrialized nations. The latest published results for tests conducted in 2012 covered 62 nations including the United States, as well as three cities in China.

In 2013-14, PISA offered individual high schools a chance to participate in exams, and nearly 300 schools in 26 states and the District of Columbia did so. The usual charge for PISA testing and reporting, administered by CTB/McGraw-Hill corporation, is $11,500 per school.

Other participating districts on the Island included Freeport, Garden City, Hauppauge, Mineola, North Shore and Oyster Bay-East Norwich. Most of those districts either declined to discuss scores, with some saying they plan to release them later, or did not respond to Newsday's calls.

Freeport High School scored below national and international averages. But the district's superintendent, Kishore Kuncham, said he was encouraged that his students did relatively well as compared with those in other communities with similar rates of poverty.

More than 60 percent of Freeport's enrollment is deemed economically disadvantaged by the state, compared with an overall average of 24 percent for Nassau County.

One suburban school district that has taken a particular interest in international testing is in Fairfax County, Virginia, home to many affluent commuters to Washington.

The highest-performing school in that countywide system, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, ranked especially high in a PISA pilot assessment of high schools conducted in 2012-13 -- with an average score of 625 in reading, for example.

The school serves students from nearby areas of Fairfax and also takes in teens talented in math and science from other counties.

Jack Dale, who retired last year as Fairfax's school superintendent, said he found PISA's report on student achievement in his county highly useful, because it went far beyond average test scores.

PISA reports typically run 100 pages or more and include such information as percentages of students meeting world-class standards and detailed information on students' attitudes toward their schools and teachers.

"Kids and their families are coming from all over the world to live in Fairfax, so as superintendent, I felt the need to make sure we were preparing kids for the world, not just northern Virginia," Dale said.