I'm sure all Levittowners have read the Levittown Schools News and learned that our schools were "...Recognized for Advancement in Student Achievement." This story, unlike the "High Performing District Award" hoax perpetrated on district residents in April 2001, merits some credibility. Unfortunately, the surgically altered report, purloined from the copyright-protected Standard & Poor's website, attempts to convey the impression that Levittown Schools have achieved a level of student academic success far beyond that intended by the Standard & Poor's report. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Standard & Poor's, little more than a year ago, launched its national website School Matters in response to the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. In what could best be described as a "side bar" report, it sought to identify student proficiency gaps in those states reporting standardized reading and math proficiency results using racial and economic stratum. The three broad categories utilized to study these "gaps" were: Black vs. White students; Hispanic vs. White students and Economically Disadvantaged vs. Non-Economically Disadvantaged students. Levittown was one of 29 New York State school districts, five on Long Island, identified for narrowing it's "achievement gap" in the latter group by 5.3 percent, while at the same time increasing the proficiency rate for both groups.

It's interesting that Levittown's Comprehensive NYS Information Report (2003-04), indicating a student enrollment of 8,027, reflects 55 elementary and 39 middle school students among those listed as economically disadvantaged. None were reported at the high school level.

I'll let you be the judge of how significant Levittown's results really were.

School Matters provides taxpayers with an invaluable national database to determine how well your school district or individual schools are performing when compared to other district or schools. I found, for example, there are 19 school districts located within a five-mile radius of Levittown. The Island Trees School District, using Reading Proficiency as my criteria, ranked fifth or in the upper 26 percent of these districts. Sad to say, the Levittown School District, ranked 17th, or in the bottom 11 percent, outperforming only the Uniondale and Roosevelt school districts. Money can't be the problem since SchoolMatters.com states Levittown's 2003-04 Operating Expenses Per Student ($14,364) ranked the district in fourth place while its Instructional Expenses Per Student ($9,908) lowered the district into ninth place. Using the same criteria, School Matters provided a listing of 111 K-12 schools located within Levittown's five-mile radius. The Sparke and Stokes elementary schools, located in Island Trees, ranked in 35th and 39th place, while you had to scroll down to 64th place to locate Levittown's Northside Elementary School. The Lee Road Elementary School, once the envy of Levittown residents, ranked in 83rd place. Our remaining elementary schools ranged somewhere between 65th and 80th place. Wisdom Lane and Jonas Salk middle schools ranked in 104th and 108th places, respectively. What can you expect when our elementary schools are churning out students, many of whom can't read or write at their appropriate grade level.

I suspect that if you call our functionally illiterate school board members and ask, "Why Levittown schools are performing so poorly?" they will probably yawn, roll over, and go back to sleep. It is obvious the education of our children isn't one of their priorities. In a few weeks you will be asked to vote on another bloated school budget and re-elect two incumbents. Remember, you will be voting for the best of the worst school districts in Nassau County. In the interim, you may wish to view Levittown's data which is currently available on the School Matters (www.schoolmatters.com) website. I think you'll be just as shocked as I was.

James P. Ward