l994-l995 Regents Performance Data
to the Capital Region Districts

The 79 districts of the Capital region have been recalculated according to their "points" accumulation. The added information is the l994-l995 Regents performance data from the recently released New York: State of Learning. In terms of Regents focused reform of secondary programs, it is most encouraging to see the original fifty five "points" districts have increased by eleven.

Based upon the decision threshold rules used in the Networking High Performance text, any k-12 district could add up to 10.0 possible full points to their existing totals. Full points were given for districts that:

graduated 60 percent or more seniors with Regents diplomas and have and estimated 85 percent or more college bound intentions

had 80 percent take the year end test and, of that number, 80 percent pass in Regents Global Studies, History/Government, Intermediate Mathematics, Biology.

had 67 percent take the year end test and, of that number, 80 percent pass in Regents Advanced Mathemetics and Chemistry.

had 40 percent take the year end test and, of that number, 80 percent pass in Regents Spanish, French and Physics. One half points were also awarded for districts that came close to the required threshold tamdem of year end test taking and passing but in a different proportion. For example, a district who reported 78 percent students taking the year end test in Global Studies and 95 percent passing would receive on half point.

The best year performance was turned in by North Colonie district (8.0 out of 10.0), who retained its top ranking in the Capital region. Voorheesville was second, followed by Niskayuna, Bethlehem, Burnt Hills and Mechanicsville.

Comparing the Capital region performance to the rest of the state, the top fifth of 649 districts state wide have Regents point totals between 34.0 (Garden City) and 7.0 when l994-l995 data are added. This would mean seventeen districts in the Capital region would be part of the target analogy district pool.

An important additional statistic, the rate of climb, was derived from adding the l994-l995 information to the initial points score. The rate of climb is the one year gain expressed as a proportional ratio to the existing total. In terms of comitment to the Regents driven improvement, it is most encouraging to see that 35 districts in the region climbed at a 1.50 or better ratio in l994-l995, including ten districts moving from zero points.

The final statistic noted are the number of Regents subject variances a district had in operation during the year. Under the method of calculation used subjects under variance were not counted for points. A district with several variances (e.g. Niskayuna, South Colonie) remain a question in terms of overall performance accounting.

The only disheartening statistic was the continuation through the l994-l995 time frame of thirteen districts who acheived no initial Regents points.

.