News

NEW YORK, NY May 19, 2005 —Fourth grade English scores in New York City went up 10 percentage points, the largest one-year gain to date. WNYC's Beth Fertig has more.

Almost 60 percent of city fourth graders met state standards on the English Language Arts Exam. Black and Hispanic students still lag behind whites and Asians but the gap has narrowed.

Critics accused Mayor Bloomberg of boosting test scores in an election year by screening out failing students with his policy of ending social promotion. But the mayor said the number of third graders who were held back this school year was the same as the previous year. He said more kids were prepared for fourth grade because they attended summer school and extra classes.

The mayor said the city would spend 40 million dollars on similar programs for Eighth graders, whose English scores fell by almost 3 points.