De Blasio chalks up charter students’ high scores to test prep – NY Daily News Mayor de Blasio said charter schools are outscoring traditional public schools because of their heavy emphasis on test prep, drawing criticism from charter advocates. “It’s not a state secret that some substantial piece of that is based on charters that focus on test prep,” de Blasio said Wednesday when asked about charters’ higher scores. “And if that’s where they put a lot of their time and energy, of course it could yield better test scores. But we don’t think that’s good educational policy. So we’re going to do it the way that we believe is right for our children.” The city’s charter school students outperformed traditional public schools on both reading and math tests this year, and made larger gains in both subjects. In 2016, 38% of traditional public school students in grades three through eight met state reading standards, up from 30.4% in 2015. And 36.4% of city kids passed math tests in 2016, up from 35.2% in 2015. Meanwhile, charter school pass rates in reading leapt from 29.3% in 2015 to 43% in 2016. And city charter school math proficiency rose from 44.2% to 48.7%. Hizzoner said he wants city schools to emphasize “critical thinking” and “problem-solving skills” which he believes are more important than cramming for tests. Read More Here
