I immediately thought of Billy O'Shea, upon reading Ginny Neal's "Students Score High" Opinion Letter in the Tribune. Billy, a grammar school classmate, was several years older than most of us. We caught up with Billy in the third grade and found him to be a delightful classmate who turned out to be the class clown. When called upon to answer, even the simplest of questions, Billy, to our amusement, would often blurt out the most preposterous answers.

Ginny Neal's letter, in my opinion, reflects a little bit of Billy since its tenor indicates her apparent inability to engage in critical analysis. "The English and Math scores are great," she writes, "I have no time to calculate in percentages, how we compared to other districts." I hope you don't mind my assisting you analyze the results.

First, Regents examinations are based upon standards which also serve as the passing score in the discipline(s) being studied, e.g., English or Mathematics I (Three-Year Sequence). The New York Department of Education then decides upon the number of questions a student must answer correctly in order to ensure the same level of difficulty on each test. Thus, students being tested in Levittown or Watertown are assured that they are being tested on similar standards and levels of difficulty. In order to meet the Commissioner's "higher standards," The Department of Education, in its wisdom, lowered the passing standard (grade) in New York from 65 percent to 55 percent. I suspect this might be analogous to saying that your SUV is not really a "lemon" if it starts 55 percent of the time.

Newsday's (12/20/01) headline proclaimed that 95 percent (Math) and 96 percent (English) of Long Island students, sitting for the June 2001 Regents examinations, successfully passed these tests and meet the minimum 55 percent standard. The good news, according to the story, indicated that Levittown students achieved a 100 percent mastery rate on each of these tests. Unfortunately, Newsday failed to provide a school by school breakdown on how well or poorly each Long Island high school performed. Let's take a look at Levittown, where a handful of MacArthur ninth-graders failed the Sequential Math I Regents and approximately 20 to 30 Levittown SD juniors passed the English regents with a grade in the 55 to 64 percent category. Well, at least, they didn't have to attend summer school!

There is good news when you look at the percentage of MacArthur students who scored at 85 percent or above on both regents. 60 percent (Math I) and 31 percent (English) isn't bad when compared with Division Avenue's 34 percent (Math I) and 31 percent (English). Ginny, possibly you can explain to me why there continues to be such a large disparity between testing results in these two schools.

Let's take a look at the Massapequa School District, with a similar student enrollment, where scores of 57 percent (Math) and 40 percent (English), in the over 85 percent category, measured favorably with MacArthur's results. Similar results were achieved at East Meadow HS with scores of 61 percent (Math) and 36 percent (English). Hicksville HS, directly north of Division Avenue, achieved results of 64 percent (Math) and 31 percent (English).

The Regents, as I mentioned above, are based upon similar standards and levels of difficulty. The Great Neck School District, for example, had a large influx of Middle Eastern students whose native language is Farsi. Yet, each of their high schools outperformed Levittown's schools in the over 85 percent category (Great Neck North: Math (89 percent), English (57 percent) and Great Neck South: Math (82 percent), English (36 percent)). Similar results were achieved in the Manhasset SD where 89 percent (Math) and 52 percent (English) of its students achieved an 85 percent or above grade.

Mrs. Neal, I'll be the first one to agree with you that "our kids are working hard." However, the results on these tests indicate that many of them are not working hard enough. Unfortunately, it appears that the Levittown School District, with its exorbitant school taxes, continues to fall into the bottom half of Nassau County school district ranking.

James P. Ward