At Bronxville, a random sample of 79 students took the two-hour assessment last spring. Superintendent David Quattrone presented the results of this pilot assessment at the February Board of Education meeting, saying, "There is much to celebrate, but we also need to evaluate the results in order to identify opportunities for improving performance still further."
The presentation compared Bronxville scores to the US and other countries. PISA also reports patterns of student motivation and perceptions of school climate. Quattrone explained that although the gender gaps are small, girls outperform boys in mathematics and science, contrary to national and international patterns. Bronxville performance is similar to other US schools with a comparable socioeconomic profile, but there are achievement gaps when Bronxville is compared to similar schools in other countries.
Quattrone focused on the descriptions of top level performance, drawing connections between the data and the District's effort to improve critical and creative thinking. For example,
Students at the top two levels are highly skilled readers, capable of deep, detailed comprehension and fine-grained analysis. They are diversified readers who can understand a wide range of content and formats that are both complex and unfamiliar. They can overcome preconceptions in the face of new information and draw on knowledge beyond the text.
