Education Week released its A-F grades for states on school quality last week. New York earned a B-, appreciably better than the nationwide C average. A closer look at scoring methodology, however, shows grade inflation at work.

Education Week raised New York’s middling academic achievement grade by giving it high marks for spending—one of three indexes they use to grade states. Education Week calls the index ”Finance,” which measures expenditures and how equitably funding varies across districts. This includes, for example, to what degree district revenue correlates with real estate value.

New York received a score of 89.3 (or B+) for finance, the third highest in Education Week’s rankings, trailing only Wyoming and New Jersey. That ranking is consistent with New York’s rank as the highest spending state in the nation.

When it comes to measuring school quality, however, spending is a dubious measure. Today’s education research field can be traced to the observation that educational inputs are not especially predictive of outputs.

A more sensible question asks how well money is spent. New York receives a failing grade when comparing spending to results. Indeed, mediocre results despite highest in the world educational expenditures ought to be met with scorn, not praise.

New York gets a C in “K-12 achievement.” The index measures standardized testing outcomes, high school graduation rates, and the percentage of students who score 3 or higher on advanced placement exams.

New York scores 72.6, a tick below the national average of 72.8. Those marks are consistent with state results on NAEP, a national assessment which facilitates comparisons of learning outcomes across states. New York trends in NAEP indicate that achievement is no better or worse than it was two decades ago.

National scores, however, modestly improved, so New York’s performance declined relative to the national average. Whereas New York previously scored above the national average on NAEP, achievement now trails the national average.

Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/NY
Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/NY

Notably, achievement outcomes reinforce that New York’s higher spending has not been a proxy for school quality. If that were true, New York schools would have improved markedly over the past 15 years. Instead, achievement stagnated.

New York’s low achievement grade is also bolstered by a B- in the third index in Education Week’s ranking system—“Chance for success.” That index measures demographic characteristics predictive of educational achievement and attainment, and includes measures such as family income and the percent of adults who are steadily employed.

New York earns an 82.2, which compares favorably to the national score of 79.2. However, including a chance for success index as a school quality measure is questionable. A great deal of school achievement is explained by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Researchers expend enormous efforts to isolate student socioeconomic status from school quality when measuring achievement. Otherwise, most schools with affluent students would be labeled “good schools” and most schools with underprivileged students would be labeled “bad.” A more sensible question asks how school achievement deviates from schools with similar student demographics.

It may be that measures such as wealth and employment can be traced back to school quality. But evaluators shouldn’t assume that all New York residents were educated in New York. And such metrics don’t factor in that their education may have occurred decades ago. The “chance for success” index allows New York schools to get a lift on their Education Week rankings simply because the state is wealthy, an arrangement that is not easily reconciled with prevailing research sensibilities.

All told, Education Week’s rankings do not measure what counts. New York’s substandard achievement coupled with highest-in-the-nation spending and above-average wealth means that when it comes to school quality, New York fails to pass the mark.

You may also like

Albany Lawmakers Push a $4 Billion Tax on Health Insurance

Legislative leaders are proposing an additional $4 billion tax on health insurance plans in the upcoming state budget – but withholding specifics of how it would work. Read More

Don’t Tell The Grownups: NY Still Hiding State Test Scores

State education officials are refusing to release the results of federally required assessments in grades 3 through 8, deliberately keeping parents and taxpayers in the dark—not only about how New York’s public schools performed, but also about how that performance was measured. Read More

What You Should Know: NY’s changing graduation requirements

Months after lowering the scores to pass state assessment exams, New York education officials are considering eliminating the Regents diploma. Read More

State Drags Out Test Mess

The New York State Education Department (SED) was proud to announce this week that they have lifted the embargo on last year’s state test scores in reading and math. Does this mean the public gets to see them now?  Read More

Back to School: New York Style

Class is in session across the state, and things are messy (especially in New York City).  Read More

As migrants flow to NY, so does red ink 

The influx of foreign migrants to New York could cost the state $4.5 billion more than expected next year, Governor Hochul today warned.  Read More

Where are New York’s Test Results?

For the second year in a row, New York parents will receive their back-to-school shopping lists before their students' results on state assessments. and Read More

The Bill Arrives: NY Faces $9B Budget Gap Next Year 

New York’s outyear budget gaps, the shortfall between planned state expenses and state tax receipts over the next three years, has exploded to more than $36 billion, just-released documents show.  Read More