The results of this year's math and English language arts tests for third- through eighth-graders are -- predictably -- dismal for schools across New York.

State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner this year raised the bar on the tests, and it showed.

Test scores released Wednesday show 53 percent of students statewide were proficient in English, compared with 77 percent last year.

In math, 61 percent met or exceeded standards, compared with 86 percent in 2009.

State education officials Wednesday reiterated that they are raising the bar, after it had been artificially low since 2006, creating systemic "grade inflation."

"The problem is that these exams didn't sufficiently test students' abilities -- the bar was set too low. But we are changing that now," Deputy Commissioner John King said.

As the results released Wednesday show, changes in scoring this year mean many students who would have been considered at mastery level are now considered merely proficient. Many students who were at the lower range of proficiency are now considered to be falling short of expectations.

Officials from many school districts, however, complained that the state should have given them some time to prepare for the change.

"It's like the commissioner of baseball waking up one day and deciding to move the fences back 20 percent," said Ken-Ton School Superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro. "That really is what happened -- no ifs, ands or buts about it. We don't have a problem with it, but it's important that people know what it is."

Hardest hit are urban districts like Buffalo, where most of the students come from poverty, and just a few points on a test can mean the difference between being considered in need of academic intervention and being considered "proficient."

In fact, a smaller portion of students in New York's five biggest cities -- New York, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers -- met or exceeded math and English standards compared with the rest of the state.

Under the new scoring, 29.8 percent of Buffalo students in grades three through eight were proficient in math this year, compared with 63 percent last year.

In English, 27.7 percent of Buffalo students met or exceeded standards, compared with 54.4 percent last year.

Superintendent James A. Williams defends the work city schools have done under his administration, saying the change in scoring should not detract from the progress that Buffalo students made in the past few years.

Since Williams became Buffalo's superintendent in 2005, his administration has focused on increasing student achievement in grades three through eight, with a particular emphasis on literacy.

Buffalo has been seeing steady gains -- in some cases, dramatic increases -- raising the percentage of Buffalo students who are considered proficient in math from 29 percent to 63 percent in just four years.

"It's important for people to understand that we responded to the tests [the Board of Regents] selected in 2006," Williams said. "We're not pleased with where we are. We're pleased with the progress we've made."

School districts across the region agree and bristle at the implication that their results the past few years have seemed better than they really were.

"We disagree with the commissioner on that," Mondanaro said. "We think it's important for people to realize how far our students have come, and its due to a lot of hard work. It hasn't been simple tests our students have taken all these years."

But Steiner says that success on eighth-grade tests does not correlate to success on high school Regents exams, which in turn does not correlate to success in college.

Because so many students across the state were reaching proficiency levels, state education officials believed it was time to raise what are known as the "cut scores" -- the raw score a student needs on each test to achieve a Level 1, 2, 3 or 4.

A 4 is considered mastery level, and a 3 is considered proficient. Students who score a 1 or 2 must be provided additional support services.

And across the region -- from city charter schools to large suburban schools to rural districts -- math and English proficiency dropped proportionately this year.

While making every student college-ready is an admirable goal, school districts need more help and direction from the state to make that happen, said Clarence Superintendent Thomas G. Coseo.

"Our concern would be: 'Let's have a clear plan, a defined set of resources we can count on to get the job done,'" Coseo said.

Williams and Amber Dixon, Buffalo's executive director of project initiatives, questioned the state's justification in altering the cut scores.

The state is relying too heavily on anecdotal feedback from college officials, as well as on the results of college placement tests for math and English, they said, questioning the validity of those tests.

Go here to search a database of test scores for Western New York schools.

News Staff Reporter Susan Schulman contributed to this report.

mpasciak@buffnews.com; jrey@buffnews.comnull