Archive: Opinions

Dear Editor,
 
I feel compelled to write regarding New York State testing and why I believe the process is severely flawed to the detriment of students, teachers, parents and school districts.
 
Allow me first to provide a simple analogy:

You take your car in for repair. After about 9 hours the vehicle is ready and you are presented with a bill for $675. The mechanic has been told by the owner of the facility that they cannot discuss what they did to your vehicle or they may get fired, but the bill is $675 and you’d better pay the bill without question!
 
Absurd? Of course it is!
 
Yet, when it comes to New York State testing we are expected to blindly follow the requirements of subjecting our 3rd – 8th grade students to two rounds of testing in ELA and Math for a total of 9 hours of testing over a two week timespan. The teachers are warned not to discuss the content of these tests, (even after they have been administered) and are under a career limiting gag-order should they violate this requirement. Similarly, parents do not have the ability review these tests after they have been administered as the state protects the content of these tests with greater fervor than the NSA protects our National interests. Results of these super-secret-teacher-evaluating-student-performance exams are not released until sometime in mid-September with parents receiving copies in the home in early October.
 
So why this extreme veil of secrecy regarding the contents of these exams?
 
All high school students who take the regents exams have a maximum testing time of 3 hours per subject. Results are provided to the students within two weeks of taking the exam and the content of each regents exam is posted on the public domain (www.nysedregents.org) again within a couple of weeks of the exam being administered?
 
Currently we have a lack of consistency and transparency in the way our state administers and evaluates student performance which in turn impacts teachers evaluations as well as school district funding.
 
The Regents process certainly seems to work well and comes with full disclosure of test content & expectations.

 
The 3rd-8th grade testing does not. Could it be that Pierson (who compiles the testing for this group of students and is also a major contributor to Governor Cuomo’s campaign fund) is helping play politics with the bully tactics currently being used by the Governor against public education? I’m certainly no conspiracy theorist, but when it comes to lack of transparency in the testing of our students, one certainly must ask why is the state so defensive about the process?
 
Or process is broken and while we certainly do not want to rock the boat when it comes to being able to fund our respective school districts, we must stand up to the abusive power being used by the state to subject our students and teachers to a meaningless process which provides no viable benchmark of achievements after the fact. Sure we all get a score, kind of like the example of the bill for $675 at the repair shop. It’s a number. What did it measure? What did you test? At grade, above grade, below grade? Why won’t you release the actual test questions?

Too many questions and not enough reliable or verifiable answers from the state!

One last thing, our teachers do a great job with our kids and have my utmost respect & support for what they do each and every day.
 
Respectfully
 
Ewan J Barr
Lansing

v11i15