I read the news article about the decline in Math proficiency in our schools. A close to 8 percent drop for the Math advanced category for HSS students is not a slight decline particularly given that there is 2.5 percent increase in the “partially proficient” category. Partially proficient means a fail grade in the context of this exam. But more worrying is the performance of kids with disabilities and Hispanic kids at HSS. For kids with disability the fail grade has increased from 18 percent to 35 percent in math. For Hispanic students in HSS, the advanced percent has declined from 45.5 percent to 14.3 percent! It seems to me that we as a school are failing the kids who need our help the most. Now, this is not a sacrifice that we are making to help the more intelligent students since going by these numbers their performance is declining as well.
Alok Sharma
West Windsor
