BUFFALO, N.Y. — Fewer than half of New York students reached a proficient level on their state ELA and math assessments last school year according to data released by the state education department Monday.
The 2021-2022 school year was the first year after "two years of pandemic disruption" where a majority of students statewide took the standardized assessments. During the 2020-2021 school year few students took the tests after the state education department gave parents the option to have their kids sit it out amid the health crisis. Testing was canceled altogether at the state of the pandemic in the Spring of 2020.
At first glance, the assessment results look like a bad report card but Western New York educators, parent leaders, and the state say there is far more to consider.
"I think it's important that we recognize, while it's these numbers that get the headline, there's a story and a child behind every number that we have an obligation to understand," said Hamburg Superintendent and Erie Niagara Superintendents Association President Michael Cornell.
The numbers released Monday were "a surprise to no one who is paying attention" said Cornell, who cited the now well-known and mostly negative impacts of remote learning on students post-pandemic.
But while a decline in ELA and math proficiency is one illustration of that impact, he added what has been harder to measure and assess is the impact on interpersonal relations, which are far more individual.
"It's convenient to talk about learning loss... it conveniently allows us to put some of these things in a bucket and then try and figure it out but I think we miss the point when that's what we do, kids just experienced loss not learning loss if that's all it is that'd be simple but they experienced loss," Cornell said.
"It can't just be about assessment I mean right now there are social-emotional learning issues that have got to be a part of this conversation," said 'We The Parents' co-chair Sam Radford, a Buffalo-based parent organization focused on education.
Radford called the state test results "disappointing" but said that his assessment is that City of Buffalo schools did not incur as much learning loss as he thought they might. Where he did find loss to be significant was among certain minority groups. Black and Hispanic students were far less likely to achieve proficiency than White and Asian students.
Buffalo Public School students in grades 3rd through 8th were on average 12.33% proficient in math and Radford said 25% proficient in ELA.
"This gives you clear data so you have a baseline of where we are at coming out of the pandemic...and have an apples-to-apples comparison with other schools across the state," Radford said.
So while curriculum-based adjustments may be needed in certain districts across Western New York, Radford and Cornell agree getting kids back to pre-pandemic levels will require other changes, such as improved counseling or for Buffalo Public Schools, consistent and on-time bussing. A proposal to adjust start and end times to alleviate transportation issues was shot down last week by the Buffalo Teacher's Federation.
"How do you catch kids up from the learning loss of the pandemic without kids being in school... if we don't solve that problem these numbers, we're just tracking our children falling further and further behind," Radford added.
In a statement, Emily DeSantis a Spokesperson for the Department said:
“New York’s trend is similar to what we are seeing nationally and at the state and district levels as a result of the lost instruction time caused by the pandemic. We have work to do to get students to where they need to be, not just academically but social and emotional as well. The Department is working with local districts to address the unique learning needs of students."
So while the state education department appears to concur with educators, in that there is much more going on than simply 'learning loss,' Cornell is quick to recall previous attempts to solve declines in proficiency that haven't worked - hoping history doesn't repeat itself.
"The process of aggregating some data, calling it learning loss and bringing in a new math series, and saying we solved the problem, won't solve the problem, I can pretty much guarantee."