Test scores in Roosevelt revised downward

Student achievement in the state-run Roosevelt school district is far lower than originally reported - and the state's Board of Regents has voted unanimously to extend its control at least one year to turn performance around.

But critics, including dissident school board members, point out the state already has had nine years to improve Roosevelt's scores. Some suggested Monday that local schools might have tampered with test scores to make past results look better than they actually were. Suspicions of tampering prompted state officials to send in monitors to supervise testing last spring.

"That to me is an outrage," said board member Frank Scott, referring to reports of lower achievement. "When different parents in different schools come to me to say there's hanky-panky going on, I think it's up to the state to investigate this and report back to the board on what they found."

The true extent of Roosevelt's scholastic woes emerged Monday in new student data released by the State Education Department. Revised figures show, for example, that barely half the district's Class of 2009 seniors graduated on schedule - as opposed to the 60 percent originally reported by district officials. A state audit showed there were more potential graduates and fewer actual graduates than originally calculated.

Data also found that test scores for younger students are lower.

For fourth-graders, for example, the state reported that 34 percent passed state English tests during the 2009-10 school year, compared with a state average of 57 percent. For the prior year, passing rates were 86 percent for Roosevelt, 77 percent for the state.

Much of the decline was due to a recent state decision to raise the cutoff for passing scores on its test. But Jonathan Burman, an education department spokesman, said Monday his agency had no official explanation for why Roosevelt's passing rates dropped more precipitously than state averages.

The Regents' vote Monday in Albany will leave the state in charge at least through June 2012. Otherwise, the takeover, which began in 2002, would have expired at the end of the current school year.

Under state law, the Regents can extend control for an additional year, through June 2013. The 2,600-student Roosevelt district is the poorest in Nassau County in terms of taxable wealth, and is the only district in the state ever taken over by Albany.

"I would expect to see a much better performance this year," said Roger Tilles of Great Neck, who represents Long Island on the Regents board. "I believe very strongly that we have a responsibility to return that district [to local control] in a manner that's adequately performing, and it's not there yet."

In a phone interview, Tilles speculated that plunging test results in Roosevelt might be explained in part by a phenomenon common in troubled school districts - specifically, that exceptional numbers of students might have scored just above the passing cutoff in past years. If that were the case, the state's decision to raise cutoff scores might have suddenly dropped many Roosevelt students below the passing line.

Still, even state education officials have suspected test tampering in Roosevelt based on an inexplicable drop in test scores between the elementary grades and the middle grades.

Last spring, state-appointed monitors descended on local elementary schools to supervise testing and scoring, though no illegalities were ever charged. District officials said at the time they were cooperating with the state; one elementary principal insisted testing at her school had been conducted properly.

At Monday's meeting in Albany, both Tilles and Robert-Wayne Harris, who is Roosevelt's superintendent, praised the work so far of the district's new high-school principal, Stephen Strachan. Strachan, who took over in August, has recently reported that student attendance is up and fighting down, and that this should be reflected in higher achievement in 2011-12.