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7TH HELL: MIDDLE GRADE HAS MOST FLUNKERS
The city’s seventh-graders were the worst performers in public elementary and middle schools last year – with 20 percent of the class required to attend summer school because they flunked and were denied promotion.
Two-thirds of seventh-graders flunked the standardized English exam, and 72 percent failed the math.
Even more glaring, more seventh-graders scored in the bottom quartile on the exams than any other grade. Students are graded from Level 1 to 4 – 1 is the worst, 2 is not meeting standards, 3 is meeting standards and 4 is exceptional.
Nearly one-quarter of seventh graders – 24 percent – scored in Level 1. That means the students are considered functionally illiterate.
It’s even worse in math, with a staggering 41 percent considered hopeless at using numbers.
By comparison, only 7 percent of students in fourth grade were held back and mandated to attend summer school – by far the lowest failure rate of all elementary and middle-school grades. Slightly more than half the fourth-graders passed the state English exam.
Meanwhile, both 14 percent of third-graders and sixth-graders flunked and were required to go to summer school; 12 percent of fifth-graders failed, and 16 percent of eighth-graders were held back for poor performance.
http://nypost.com/2003/07/15/7th-hell-middle-grade-has-most-flunkers/