Statewide, 61.5percentt of fourth graders, a grade educators consider a key barometer of literacy, met English-language standards, an increase of about 13 percentage points from four years ago.
Cute signs, posters and board borders are ideas for primary grade educators.
The participants were four classroom teachers, three mathematics coaches, one elementary mathematics interventionist, one middle grades special educator, and the DMS.
The intervention was designed with the assistance of professional health educators and was directed toward a fifth grade education level.
"There was a groundswell of interest in reading and writing in the elementary grades" among parents, educators and the media in recent years, Mr. Mills said yesterday during a news conference in Albany.
President Bush defended the law on Monday and how his administration enacted it, saying third graders -- an important grade watched by educators -- have been reading and doing math better in the two years it has been in place.
For essay questions, state officials will explore a relatively new technology called distributive scoring, in which answer sheets are scanned and uploaded onto computers, and graded by other educators across the state.
In fact, Mr. Levy said he would allow children in kindergarten through second grade, which many educators consider the most important years, to attend summer school if they wanted even though they are not part of the plan to end social promotion.
Since Mr. Condon was appointed in 2002, a vast majority of the 1,252 accusations of test-tampering and grade-changing by educators he has received have been referred back to the department's in-house investigators; city officials last week would not provide information about the disposition of those cases.
Annual allegations of test-tampering and grade-changing by educators have more than tripled since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of New York City's school system, outpacing a broader increase in complaints of adult misconduct in schools during the same period, according to the special commissioner of investigation.
