ALBANY - New York middle school students, including many of those locally, are scoring better on state math tests, yet education officials are more concerned than pleased.

The percentage of students who meet the state standard rose five points in one year, to 86 percent from 81 percent, according to results released by the Board of Regents on Monday.

Despite the spike in middle school math scores, the Board of Regents cited a continued disparity between state and national performance and said it wanted to test the tests.

''Just because scores have gone up dramatically does not mean that our youngsters are ready to go to college,'' said state schools Chancellor Merryl Tisch in a tough-talking news conference two weeks after taking the job.

In 2007, tests showed only half as many fourth-graders nationally were proficient in math as were considered proficient in state tests, Tisch said.

Locally, both the Gloversville Enlarged School District and Greater Johnstown School District saw their eighth-grade math scores decrease. Johnstown's eighth-grade math assessment scores showed 60.9 percent of students meet or exceed the learning standards, down 6 percent from last year. In Gloversville, the number dropped to 72.4 percent from 74.7 percent.

"We're very pleased with the scores, particularly grades three through six, which are right where they've been," Johnstown Superintendent Kathy Sullivan said. "The seventh grade is also favorable, but it appears we need to do some work at the eighth-grade level."

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The St. Johnsville Central School District also saw a drop in its eighth-grade scores, but only by percentage points.

The other 11 districts in The Leader-Herald coverage area saw increases in their eighth-grade scores.

The biggest jump was in the Northville Central School District, where 92.1 percent of eighth-graders met or exceeded the state learning standard, up from 61.8 percent a year ago.

However, Northville Superintendent Kathy Dougherty said there was concern about the sixth grade, which saw only 69.2 percent of students meet or exceed the standard this year, down from 96.5 last year.

"It's two different sets of students and it doesn't take very many students to change the results," Dougherty said. "Some years we have students who are stronger in math and sciences and other years where students are stronger in English and language arts. "I think some of the efforts we've made into progress monitoring and looking more in depth at students and targeting deficiencies sooner has contributed to the improvement."

Fonda-Fultonville Superintendent James Hoffman, whose district saw 98.4 percent of its eighth-graders meet or exceed state standards, was pleased with the results.

"We feel they came out well," Hoffman said. "Obviously, we look at them to see if there are any places we need to improve. We had a slight dip in one grade level, and we'll look at that to see if issues need to be addressed."

Overall, the rural districts saw higher success rates than the three city districts in Fulton and Montgomery counties.

"We have a larger population to draw from, and most likely in the rural districts, there is more attention allowed by smaller class sizes," Sullivan said. "We have a more diverse population of students that we have to support."