"My students refused to take the tests seriously for several reasons: the weather (so hot), the timing (last week of school) and the fact that they KNOW these are practice exams, despite me straight-up lying to them, saying that our school would use their grades to place them in their English class next year. The fact that these test scores may be used as data about the capabilities of NYC students is truly frightening; these tests do NOT reflect what my students are capable of." - a NYC teacher
This teacher was required to administer 2 days of standardized testing during the last week of classes (last week) during English class to 9th grade. 10th grade had 4 days of standardized testing last week. The teacher was told by admin that these tests were city-wide. Anyone know if that is true?
Some speculation:
Will kids be leading the way in boycotting tests in the future?
Will teachers be blamed as Doug Avella was?
(Note this teacher, unlike Doug, tried to lie to the kids -- I can see why, given possible repercussions, but in the long run the kids need to trust the teacher.)
Are they being used instead for the teacher evaluation study/ scheme/ to rate teachers on their annual gains in test scores – for the purposes of eventually using this for tenure decisions, contrary to the supposed restrictions in the contract?
4 comments:
If they are what I think they are, they are a "test" exam. New York state is experimenting with questions and sent the exams to schools. The results don't count.
I had to administer these exams as well- poor grammar, spelling mistakes, and all.
The first round, which was given to 9th, 10th, and 11th was called a "Predictive Assessment." The stated goal is to predict how the students will perform on the Regents Exam, and the test was a sample Regents (with the most god-awful boring reading passages, but that is another issue!). The second round, given only to 10th grade, was called a "Field Test." In the materials I received, they said that this test was being given to select 10th grades across the city, not all 10th grade. I believe this test is being used to determine a standard for what the average 10th grader can be expected to do.
In our high school, students took final exams, Acuity tests, Regents exams, and the experimental ones from the state-all within a two week period of time.
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