Dear Commons Community,
Elizabeth Phillips, the principal of Public School 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for 15 years, has an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times highly critical of the tests administered last week in grades 3 through 8 across New York State. She states:
“In general terms, the tests were confusing, developmentally inappropriate and not well aligned with the Common Core standards. The questions were focused on small details in the passages, rather than on overall comprehension, and many were ambiguous. Children as young as 8 were asked several questions that required rereading four different paragraphs and then deciding which one of those paragraphs best connected to a fifth paragraph. There was a strong emphasis on questions addressing the structure rather than the meaning of the texts. There was also a striking lack of passages with an urban setting. And the tests were too long; none of us can figure out why we need to test for three days to determine how well a child reads and writes.”
Furthermore, she comments that educators across the state are prohibited from discussing details about the tests because:
“Pearson’s $32 million contract with New York State to design the exams prohibits the state from making the tests public and imposes a gag order on educators who administer them. So teachers watched hundreds of thousands of children in grades 3 to 8 sit for between 70 and 180 minutes per day for three days taking a state English Language Arts exam that does a poor job of testing reading comprehension, and yet we’re not allowed to point out what the problems were…
We do not want to become cynics, but until these flawed exams are released to the public and there is true transparency, it will be difficult for teachers and principals to maintain the optimism that is such an essential element of educating children.”
Ms. Phillips makes fine points regarding testing in New York. She joins many other educators across the state who are calling out and pleading with policy makers to examine the testing insanity that has been perpetuated on children and teachers in our schools.
Tony
Thanks for sharing this, Tony. I think the op-ed piece by Elizabeth Phillips is right on point. My brother works at P.S. 321 and was the teacher speaker at the rally last week. My daughter is only in 2nd grade so she hasn’t had to take any of the state tests, but I’m planning to opt her out next year because I think the lack of transparency is absolutely ridiculous and I don’t want to contribute to Pearson’s data points.