New York Education states that English and Math exams are too predictable State Education officials were talking a year ago about the students' improved performance on mastery level tests, now they want to make the test a lot more difficult. During the 2009-2010 school year, state officials decided to increase the level of unpredictability on the math exams by adding new questions that tested a different set of skills for the students in grades 3 to 8, and by giving the standardized test later in the school year. The most noticeable change will come when the state Education Department hands out the scores on the Math and English /Language arts tests, which the students took earlier this spring. The state officials said that the scores are going to drop significantly after being on an upward position for many years. The test results will be released on Wednesday July 28th 2010. David
Steiner, Education Commissioner, and the Board of Regents admitted last week that
they believed the test was too easy and predictable. Depending on the scores,
some students will be knocked down from a proficiency of 3 on a scale of 4, to
a 1 or a 2. Steiner made a presentation last week at the Board of Regents meeting, and said that the next step would be for the Education Department and Regent to lengthen the state exams and redo the content of the English and Math tests, to make them less predictable. Robert
Lowry, deputy director of the state Council of School Superintendents, said that
the state education officials did not send any type of warning that changes in
the test were being made, and if they did then it would have been better to notify
the students and teachers in the beginning of the school year that test scores
were going to be changed. |