GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Office Space

November 24, 2010

Let’s Get Complicated

by Arthur Goldstein, at 11:36 am

Every year in New York State, there’s an entire week in January devoted to giving Regents exams. Kids can study, prepare, and take tests, or if they’re really lucky, get a week off. Meanwhile, their teachers proctor, grade exams, and take care of whatever has to be done before the kids return.

This year things are different. One reason is that there’s a new English Regents exam. It’s been streamlined and there’s less writing. It only takes one day instead of two. And it appears to be largely regulated by a private company called Pearson, contracted for “performance standards revisitation.” I’m not entirely certain what that means, but perhaps how kids perform on the test will determine which standards need to be applied. Will the test be easier? More difficult?

No one knows for sure, and that worries those of us who constantly have Adequate Yearly Progress hanging over our heads. In fact, the conversion chart that will allow teachers to turn raw scores into actual grades won’t be available for two weeks after the tests are scored.

This brings me to another point — this test will not be given during Regents week, which begins Jan. 25. Instead, it will be administered Jan. 11. This means New York high school kids will lose, besides Regents week, an additional full day of school. But that’s not all. The geniuses at Pearson have decreed that all test papers be scored, recorded, photocopied, and prepared for UPS delivery by 2 p.m. on Jan. 12.

Perhaps Pearson is unaware that ESL and special education students require extra time to take these exams. Thus, they will be around for hours after the native-English-speaking kids finish. It’s unlikely their teachers will be around long enough to grade all their papers (and I can tell you from experience it’s more time-consuming to read ESL papers than native papers).

What will happen? Likely teachers will need to come back very early the next morning to grade, and English language learners will lose yet another day of instruction.

But that’s not all. Kids in classes that focus on the Regents exam will have two weeks of classes that lead nowhere. Not knowing whether they passed or not, will kids be motivated to study for a test they just took?  Will they simply assume they passed and tune out? If a teacher chooses to do something wild, say, teach a book without simply focusing on terms mandated by the Regents exam, perhaps she’ll get written up by some overzealous supervisor.

It seems obvious the sensible thing to do is give the test after the class ends. Shouldn’t we give kids more, not less prep time? And doesn’t it make sense to give them additional instruction when it’s so easy to do? This is particularly true of an exam no one’s ever seen, and giving kids every opportunity to excel seems more important than making things convenient for the folks at Pearson.

I’ve been saying for years that it’s absurd to administer the English Regents exam to my ESL students; they require a very different kind of instruction and examination than those of us born here. Preparing them for this exam deprives them of instruction they will likely need to revisit in college remedial courses — courses they’d need not pay for if we were free to give them what they need in high school.

The nonsensical manner in which this test will be administered exacerbates an already absurd situation. And it’s just one more thing that happens when educational decisions get made without educators’ input.

Print Print
  • L. Taylor

    Please don’t let to many people know about January and June please. Us H.S. Teachers really have been enjoying these free months for a long time. Don’t draw attention Artie. January & June are incredible months.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Arthur,

    You say the tests must be graded and sent UPS by the next day, and that the conversion tables will not be available until two weeks later: hmm, sounds like the vendor will look at samples, and the cut scores will be determined based on that.

    How’s that for validity, and for juking the stats?

  • Pogue

    How many schools do we need to close? How many more charters did we get okayed to replace closing schools?…

    Pearson, you’ve got two weeks alone with these tests. Do your work.

  • http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/ Arthur Goldstein

    L. Taylor,

    I don’t know what you do in January and June, but I read millions of ESL papers and proctor exams.  I suppose, having read them the 12th, I’ll do more proctoring,  Personally, I find proctoring exams the single most tedious task I have to do as a teacher.  I’d rather be in the classroom any day.

    Michael,

    That’s precisely the impression I got.  I wonder if the vendor designed the test, and is also setting up stats to establish its “validity.”

    Pogue,

    It’s kind of amazing that our kids lose two weeks of review and study so that Pearson can review their papers and produce whatever results it wants to.  I’m sure if schools were given that sort of consideration they’d all be excellent (by whatever standard they set for themselves).

  • Jen

    http://www.amazon.com/Making-Grades-Misadventures-Standardized-Industry/dp/098170915X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290644348&sr=8-1

    Ahhh, Pearson — this book will tell you everything you feared about standardized tests and grading.

  • Jen

    If you do the click inside option at Amazon and head to page 6, it has my most favorite description of attempting to score a child’s answer ever. Anyone who has had or taught elementary school age children will recognize the thinking.

  • Jen

    And no, I don’t know the author or have any connection to the book (other than having borrowed it from my local library!)

  • http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com The Reflective Educator

    As a teacher who works in an all-ELL school, I too find this to be utterly absurd.  There is virtually nothing about this plan that is designed to improve education.  The intent is to help politicians.

  • L. Taylor

    Artie,
    I’m a gym teacher. I don’t grade anything and Jan is when we play basketball during regents exams. If I were an English teacher, I’d probably be taking classes to be in the gym, since the pay is the same except we get to coach and rake in the per session. Anyway, thanks for the laugh about grading papers. It truly is a great country.

  • http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/ Arthur Goldstein

    I’m not Artie.  And you’re not a teacher.

  • AT

    LT – aren’t you supposed to be trying to sleep with teenage prostitutes? Or are you just a former philosopher who always tried masquerading as a teacher in the past? Where ya been? They stopped paying you to trash teachers?

  • I noticed that…

    Besides the moronic scheduling of the English Regents on January 11th, it’s the disruption of the entire school day for those students who must take the exam. There has to be a separate location within the school for the students to take the exam for those hours while the rest of the students follow their program. It sounds like chaos to me. In a small school, where do these students go? Proctors’ programs have to be covered by other teachers. It still sounds like chaos to me. After the English Regents, the ELA teachers will have a very difficult time maintaining their students’ attention since there will be nothing to hold over their heads. Damn, it still sounds like chaos to me.

    No Regents Left Behind! I guess in 2013 the Math and English Regents will be administered in Mid-October and released after the mayoral election. You never know if BloomBlack (assuming Steiner grants her the waiver out of political fear of not obtaining a position in Murdock’s media empire. sorry I digress) wants to run a 4th term. I don’t trust the Napoleonic mayor.

    To all my fellow teachers, have a great thanksgiving!

  • L. Taylor

    AT,
    I’m sorry you can’t understand me. I, along with most of my friends at my school do not take things as serious as the writers on here. In January, high school is a joke. The new semester is lingering and approaching by February 1st. The final week of January is ridiculous. The week before that, no one is in school. That’s all I was relaying. When I read Arthur’s article I was shaking my head but everyone I work with was even more dumbfounded.
    I make my 18 year longevity pay at 86+K and with per session, I take it over 100K. I think its the best job in the world. Yesterday, the day before a holiday the attendence was probably about 50%. Another free day. I can’t understand why other teachers just don’t get it. I do a great job with my kids but I also know that there is no way in hell that I would be stressing out or taking this job as serious as others when I know the disaster that this systems state is in. Arthur, not only am I a teacher on Masters +30, I’m also a dean who walks around with a stupid walkie-talkie all day after teaching only 2 classes in the a.m. My point was that its a beautiful thing. You just have to find your gig within this nightmare.
    AT’s comments are comical. In fact, the entire article and serious responses tells me that there’s actually people out there who take this stuff seriusly. Anyway, I have to go sign an IEP at a conference where I don’t know the kid and the parent never showed. Ahahaaa! That happens once a week and Arthur is talking about marking hundreds of ELL papers?? What planet are you on?
    Charter schools, public schools, ELL kids who count on a school report card grade, Special Ed kids who are in 10th grade with 2nd grade levels, Chancellors with no experience, Mayors who give friends jobs on PEP teams for automatic votes, and most of all, Support Networks for Schools who do absolutely NOTHING and get paid while saying they help?? I’m sure I can go on for hours but my son wants to play. Arthur, Happy Thanksgiving! Great story but you’re living in a fantasy world. AT, that was childish. At least I’m speaking the truth.

  • http://www.elfrank.net jelfrank

    Reminds me of an old DC 37 election: “We’ll just keep the cast ballots for a few weeks in the president’s office before we start counting”. “Trust us!” 

  • L. Taylor

    AT,
    I’m sorry you can’t understand me. I, along with most of my friends at my school do not take things as serious as the writers on here. In January, high school is a joke. The new semester is lingering and approaching by February 1st. The final week of January is ridiculous. The week before that, no one is in school. That’s all I was relaying. When I read Arthur’s article I was shaking my head but everyone I work with was even more dumbfounded.
    I make my 18 year longevity pay at 86+K and with per session, I take it over 100K. I think its the best job in the world. Yesterday, the day before a holiday the attendence was probably about 50%. Another free day. I can’t understand why other teachers just don’t get it. I do a great job with my kids but I also know that there is no way in hell that I would be stressing out or taking this job as serious as others when I know the disaster that this systems state is in. Arthur, not only am I a teacher on Masters +30, I’m also a dean who walks around with a stupid walkie-talkie all day after teaching only 2 classes in the a.m. My point was that its a beautiful thing. You just have to find your gig within this nightmare.
    AT’s comments are comical. In fact, the entire article and serious responses tells me that there’s actually people out there who take this stuff seriusly. Anyway, I have to go sign an IEP at a conference where I don’t know the kid and the parent never showed. Ahahaaa! That happens once a week and Arthur is talking about marking hundreds of ELL papers?? What planet are you on?
    Charter schools, public schools, ELL kids who count on a school report card grade, Special Ed kids who are in 10th grade with 2nd grade levels, Chancellors with no experience, Mayors who give friends jobs on PEP teams for automatic votes, and most of all, Support Networks for Schools who do absolutely NOTHING and get paid while saying they help?? I’m sure I can go on for hours but my son wants to play. Arthur, Happy Thanksgiving! Great story but you’re living in a fantasy world. AT, that was childish. At least I’m speaking the truth. But the reference to #56 was entertaining.

  • http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/ Arthur Goldstein

    I noticed that…

    I believe your school has the option of closing, and I suppose you any school that doesn’t has few students taking the Regents, administrators who don’t plan well, or both.  Hopefully that’s not your school.

    John,

    I will never forget learning that the DC37 election that inspired every union in the city was based on a fraud that sent its leaders to the hoosegow.  I remember Saint Rudy, always suing everyone over everything, not having a single thing to say about that.  I also remember that we, the first to be offered it, turned it down.  Sandy Feldman wrote we’d have to be “smoking something” if we thought we could do better.  When it came back, though, UFT teachers hit maximum salary in 22 rather than 25 years.

    Reflective Educator,

    Maybe it’s designed to help politicians, but I’m not precisely sure how.  Seems like a lot of unnecessary mess to me.  Fortunately for them, I suppose, it’s overshadowed by all the nonsense of how we need yet another unqualified chancellor.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all!

  • miss teacher

    L Taylor- “You just have to find your gig within this nightmare”- great line. I agree. But you’re fortunate that your gig does not involve test scores. Are you suggesting that Mr. Goldstein just NOT grade all those papers? I am an ELA teacher, also dealing with papers up the wazoo. Mr. Goldstein makes a very important point- that too many important decisions are made for teachers and kids without our input. 18 year longevity? Andrew Cuomo’s coming after those of us who are up there on the salary scale- I fear that LIFO is on its way out, and with it, people like you and I who do a good job but can be replaced by cheaper people. I envy your lack of stress, I really do.

  • ASTRAKA

    L. Taylor,
    For many teachers who teach regents classes, January and June are the most exhausting months. Many of us work extra hours to help our students pass the regents, proctor exams, mark exams etc. We don’t get paid more money, but we do it for our students. It is very difficult for many of us to tell our students we can’t help you now because we have lunch. We can’t help you now because we have prep. My two children graduated from NYC public schools and they are grateful to their teachers who helped them the most. I have been teaching almost double the years that you have been teaching, and I can tell you that I can feel Arthur’s frustration to the highest degree. We practiced, and still practice, “children come first” before it became an empty slogan used by pseudo-educators and pseudo-EDreformers.

  • L. Taylor

    Ok guys, I feel your pain and understand your viewpoints. I apologize for making light of it but the other things I refer to in my earlier response, are all true. After 19 years in the DOE on the high school level, I have seen many questionable and illegal activities.
    Regardless, you have opened my eyes as I realize the regents prep, etc are vital. Then again you must be aware that teachers who mark there own students tests are also fudging them so the overall scores passing are higher. Do not deny it, I have seen it in person. If a kid gets between a 55-64 you better believe its a 65 when it goes in the “scored” pile. Anyway, that’s another story for Arthur to write about.
    We all choose our own paths in this system. Some want to teach regents classes and grade papers in Jan & June while others want to shoot hoops and do minimal proctoring.
    Thank you to all the teachers who grade papers in those months. I do not envy you and would not do that job unless the pay was increased for regents teachers by something like 25%. Actually I wouldn’t even do it for an additional 25%.
    People at my job told me about this webpage. I think its pretty interesting to read and since there is no actual way to track a writer, it makes for real talk whereas I would never submit information like this if I had to use my file # or DOE email to post.
    How can you bring up a subject on here to be researched and discussed? I see the writers on here are very talented and informative. I have some serious topics that are mind blowing in our field that should be reviewed and discussed.
    My previous post talks about the so called “Support Groups” that popped up about 5 or 6 years ago. To this day we are trying to figure out what these people do and why they were “Needed”. Do you know that the “Support Network” at my school charges the school $30,000 each year to “Help” and do B.S. retreats? They have about 100 schools on their list which also includes charter schools. That’s about 3 MILLION dollars! Where is the article on this practice? This is just one group. There are many of these support networks that never existed in the past. I would love to see Maura or Anna or whoever write an article about these groups and EXPOSE them. This is a complete farse and non-needed practice that the DOE has actually O.K.’d. Do you know why? Take a guess …… $$$$$. Guess who gets a cut? I’d love to see some coverage on these “Support” jokes who “Help”. I will withold the name of the group that works with my school, for now.

  • http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/ Arthur Goldstein

    Maybe they should cover how one guy manages to observe the practices of thousands of English teachers in hundreds of schools from a basketball court.  

  • L. Taylor

    Art,
    Now that was funny. I’m glad to see you trying to spice up your boring “grading papers” article. You’re doing better and responding to my heckling is a sure treat. However, I’m not sure if other writers would respond as you are. Then again, you’re just an English teacher in a city where about 20% of all students actually read and write on grade level. I’d be discouraged too.
    I’m sorry I can’t help you with observing thousands of English teachers (most who aren’t even licensed) from a basketball court. I couldn’t risk the publicity and losing my 100K/180 day gig with my goal of hitting 65% of my final 3 years of service. No way Art, can’t help ya there. This is my last post on your lame piece. You should thank me for sparking it up for you.
    Now if you would like to meet and shoot some hoops in late January that could be really entertaining. We need people like you, thanks!

  • http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/ Arthur Goldstein

    Wow–watched ‘em grade, and checked their licenses too!   Now there’s a story.

  • Michael M.

    Art and LT,

    Pardon the snark, but is there a NYS Assessment for shooting free throws? A Value-Added metric looming over L’s career?

    To my eye, Art — and not just in this essay, but a whole slew — is trying to shed light on how the system works (or should but doesn’t).

    LT, while you apparently love your gig and feel entitled to laugh your way to the bank, as a parent myself, I dare to suggest maybe this wasn’t your most shining moment in attempting to show the Gotham community that you deserve such pay, tenure, and a pulpit from which to knock other teachers, even those “…who mark there (sic) own students (sic) tests…”

    We can get into the ins and outs of whether all teaching positions should be paid the same another day.

    I just hope such cynicism — admittedly, I’m a fine one to talk — doesn’t rub off on other parents (sic) kids.

  • Don Bemont

    Arthur, you are right. This is yet another of those decisions that regularly remind us that education is secondary to other considerations.

    It certainly appears that New York State knows exactly what kind of scores it wants on these exams: low enough to qualify for federal money, but not so low as to grab headlines. Thus, the plan to have the students take the exam and have all raw results collected in a central location before they commit to a conversion chart that turns them into grades. By farming the work out a private contractor, the state maintains a level of deniability for anything that goes wrong.

    Thus, those higher up the feeding chain get what they need, but students lose considerable instructional time: the day of the test, almost certainly the following day when teachers score the tests, and, to a large extent the following two weeks when teachers try to convince that the course is not over, even if the final exam has been given — a tough task in a system that prizes test results above all else.

    No one wants to hear it because it is so frustrating, but the Observer Effect (often the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, from physics) explains a great deal of the problem in trying to improve public education: The very act of measuring causes dramatic, unintended effects.

  • Michael M.

    DB,

    Great comment.

    Note Campbell’s Law as well: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

    BTW, I share your understanding of Heisenberg as per general usage. But as I recall from growing up in a science nerd family, his point wasn’t about causing effects; it was more narrowly that you can’t measure two things precisely at once, without giving up some accuracy on one or the other, at the quantum level. (Inferences about individual teacher performance based on aggregate student performance come to mind.)

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

0 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Copyright Notice