Eight ETM Partner Schools Receive "A"'s From the NYC DOE!
The scores are in for the 2007-08 school year, and eight of ETM's 11 public partner schools received an "A" grade from the Department of Education! As part of the Department's accountability program, these scores represent progress within the schools and are based largely on student progress and achievement on state math and English exams.
Other contributing factors included comparisons with a peer group of 40 schools, a focus on whether the bottom third of students at each school progressed since last year, and statistics that measured safety and attendance.
Only 45% of all elementary schools in New York City received an "A" grade.
Kristina Beecher, principal of PS 3 in Brooklyn, attributes her school's success to ETM's invovlement: "[p]arents continue to value the quality of arts education at PS 3, exemplified by the ETM program", she states. "As a result parents continue to enroll their children in the school with the expectation that we will provide an arts-enriched education in addition to our core curriculum instruction. Student achievement on standardized test during 2007-2008 dramatically improved and we were able to move many of our students from the bottom quartiles on both the NYS ELA and Math tests, such that we were able to climb from a "C" to an "A" on our School Report Card. I attribute this to many factors, including the long-term impact of the ETM program on student learning. "
