The Scoring is Suspect
Tinkering with the number of points needed to pass New York’s literacy exams may have rendered them useless in gauging how well our kids are learning to read.
Something went wrong.
“It seems increasingly likely that something unexpected happened with the scoring of the reading tests last year,” says Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
His comments on the sharp decline in New York student literacy scores came after I learned that the state education department and its test publisher NWEA, under a five-year $50 million contract, tweaked the scoring of the 2025 tests.
Last year, Kathleen Moore of the Times-Union and I reported evidence that the state had lowered the passing benchmarks for some grades on the exams, raising doubts about claims of eye-popping academic progress.
After the state released this year’s scores, I asked Fred Smith, a researcher and former DOE testing specialist, to scrutinize NWEA’s 2025 technical reports, which provide detailed data on the scoring of its English Language Arts (ELA) exams. He confirmed our news reports.
Scores in several grades rose sharply in 2025.
But this year, all the gains evaporated. In NYC, scores fell an average 6 points in grades 3 to 8. But they plummeted nearly 14 points in third-grade, 6 points in fourth grade, and 13 points in fifth grade.
The state stands by the disturbing data, insisting it shows a real slide in reading proficiency from 2025 to 2026.
Some experts don’t buy it.
“The proficiency rates in NYC and the state as a whole look like they really haven’t budged since 2024,” Pallas told me.
