Recently while browsing education articles, I found an article on this topics written by Ben Chapman from the New York daily news. I found it to be very interesting since I live in New York and my daughter has taken the New York State Reading/ELA Assessment this past year.
There are some advocates out there who are saying that the New York Dept. of Education has made the ELA/Reading testing easier so that more students pass and make the State look better overall.
An article from “Class Size Matters” claim that New York state lowered the raw scores need to pass the assessment.At first look, I though this claim was false but when i inquired with my daughter who took the test, she told me that the ELA test this year seemed easier compared to previous years.
I know this is only the opinion of one student that took the test, but it does get me to question what New York State is doing? It is important to show improvement, but ethically! I don’t think New York state would stoop that low to show improvement. Student improvement cannot be manipulated just so a state looks good. My opinion is that the schools are preparing their Students better, and that is why the scores are showing improvement overall.
I think questioning the test itself is a slap in the face to the 1000’s of Teachers and Administrators that have worked hard to improve student achievement. As a person that works with schools on a daily basis, the accusations are very insulting. Instead of demoralizing the tests the advocates that are out there should be praising the schools that have worked very hard to improve student achievement and made significant progress on the state tests.
Instead of accusing the State of manipulation I would like to thank those teachers and administrators who have worked hard to improve their schools and student performance. Hats off to you!
*The opinions stated in the above Commentary does not reflect the views or stance of Lumos Learning the opinions in this Blogs are the opinions of the author.
Cited Article: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/new-york-state-test-scores-rose-bar-lowered-article-1.2739143
