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For years, New York City students were making steady progress on their state exams. It wasn’t just that more kids were passing. The percentage scoring at the lowest level on their reading tests fell from 17 percent, when Mayor Bloomberg took office, to just 3 percent in 2009. But when the state decided its tests were too easy and changed the scoring system, the percentage of kids at the bottom quintupled – to about one out of every six elementary and middle schoolers.

A coalition called Save Our Schools is urging the city to stop relying so heavily on standardized tests. The group of elected officials and education groups says the sudden decline in scores this year, after the state made its tests harder to pass, shows how unreliable exams can be when measuring schools and principals.