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Moral of the story?

April 20, 2012

“Hare and Pineapple” test item scrapped amid media attention

by Geoff Decker, at 6:12 pm

State education officials said this afternoon that they’re tossing out six questions related to the now-famous “Hare and the Pineapple” passage that appeared this week on the state’s eighth grade English exams.

In a statement, Commissioner John King said that due to the “ambiguous nature of the test questions” from the passage, students wouldn’t be penalized – or awarded – points on the final scoring of the exams.

But King also defended the passage, saying it wasn’t as confusing as it has been presented publicly so far. King, who appeared in Brooklyn this afternoon at Clara Barton High School to hear from students enrolled in a medical pathways program that partners with SUNY Downstate Medical Center, offered another reason the tests weren’t counting.

“The questions make much more sense in the context of the full passage than the excerpts that folks have seen,” King said. ”But given the press coverage we won’t be able to use those particular questions.”

The passage and questions generated widespread debate in the press and on the Internet this week after a version of the passage – and a portion of the reading comprehension questions – were published.

“Some of the versions of the text that have been circulated on the web exclude the very sentences that are the evidence for the answers to the two questions that have been discussed,” King said.

Similar versions of the question have also been used in past years in other states by Pearson, the test developer that is contracting with the state and created the exam. A dormant Facebook page about the passage that was created two years has received thousands of ‘likes’ in recent days as the question resurfaced in New York. Even the renowned author of the passage slammed the use of the passage as a way to measure student learning.

But King didn’t let Pearson completely off the hook. He said that officials would review Pearson’s procedures for selecting and reviewing exam questions.

The passage is also unlikely to appear on state tests in the future because it wasn’t aligned with new Common Core curriculum standards that are being rolled out in full for next year’s exam. The standards would require students to do more analysis and critical thinking, rather than simply locating information in reading passages.

The New York State Education Department released a complete version of the passage and the questions:

The Hare and the Pineapple

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  • Michael M. (parent still)

    Re “The questions make much more sense in the context of the full passage.”

    Now there’s a new definition of the Dream Act.

  • Mariak101

    “The Hare and the Pineapple” Effect: absurd standardized tests lead to student placement, teacher evaluations and school progress reports. Eat the pineapple because it won’t race. Close the schools because they cannot meet impossible statistical expectations.

  • ASTRAKA

    What an idiotic attempt at mimicking an Aesopean Fable!
     But then again, it is a perfect example of how the new Education Reform movement is fixing our country’s educational problems;) 

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Either the exam items in question are valid, in which case Commissioner King should make that case and insist on their “counting,” or they should be discarded. But they can’t be both. 

    King’s response suggests that he thinks these are valid test items that will not be counted due to political pressure brought by ignorant teachers, administrators and parents.  

    What’s really going on is a desperate attempt to keep people from looking behind the curtain that hides the shoddiness and cultural biases embedded in these exams, and the utter derangement of using them to evaluate students, teachers and schools.

    Yes, folks, ignore that man behind the curtain, or you might discover that the exams are nothing more than a vehicle for profiteering, firing teachers, closing schools and re-ordering the educational landscape to serve the interests of a very narrow class of people.

  • guest

    Two thoughts:

    1) Bravo to Pearson for pulling out some Daniel Pinkwater. For the myriad who know not, Pinkwater is a master of the absurd and silly. If you don’t get the (intentional) foolishness of this play-on-folktale, blink your eyes and look for the tongue in his cheek. 

    2) Whomever designed these questions clearly doesn’t understand the difference between opinion and fact, to say nothing of the actual purpose of reading. Hope this team was immediately fired once this storm broke!

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    In all seriousness:  Is the problem with this story and these questions that they’re too subtle for 8th graders?  Because they seem very straightforward to me.  I certainly wouldn’t say that the questions don’t make sense, and I would consider a child who understood these questions to be a more sophisticated reader than one who didn’t.  But I’m not 12 (seriously), I don’t have any 12-year-olds, and I’ve never taught 12-year-olds.

  • Ken Hirsh

    That’s an interesting question.  Having read the full passage and the questions, I find questions 6, 7, 8, and 10 to be poorly constructed.  (I am NOT an expert on this sort of thing, to be clear!)  I suppose you disagree?  
    With that said, I think there is a reasonably clear answer to all of the questions except for #8.  What’s the answer to #8 and why? 

    Meanwhile, I think the passage itself is fine (and funny) and questions 9 and 11 seem fine.  

    Overall, I think my initial reaction was too negative, but I still think the questions are poorly constructed.

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    The best answer would be the owl, because the owl’s the only one that doesn’t suspect the pineapple of trickery.  He takes things at face value — it’s a freaking pineapple, guys.  This question is the worst of the bunch, because it’s not clear (at least in the portion we’re provided) that the owl actually comprehends the significance of his literal observation. I could see people going with the hare, who observes that the entire concept of the race is a “joke” and that the pineapple’s only a fruit, but that seems more like trash-talk than wisdom.  I think all can agree that the moose and the crow are idiots.

  • Ken Hirsh

    This is pretty funny.  I’m pretty sure you got the answer they wanted, but I’d point out that we aren’t dealing with a “freaking pineapple” — we are dealing with a freaking talking pineapple.  The first two paragraphs suggest no other special skills, but the pineapple’s confidence would be suggestive of some sort of trick.  (What’s the motive for the challenge?)  All in all, it seems like a foolish question for a quirky story like this one.

    The other questions I refer to (6, 7, 10) are odd questions too.  I don’t think the answers are ambiguous but the questions seem forced and awkward.  I can picture the test writer struggling to come up with good questions to fit the story.

    If a significant portion of the test is like this section, I’m concerned about the test quality and quality control processes.  Based on my limited understanding of the chain of command, I hold the SED ultimately responsible. 

    Finally, given my concerns about general government competency, I think it is troubling (although understandable) if the government wants to keep the tests from public eyes.  It’s a cost/benefit analysis, but I think the benefit of having the public scrutinize the tests significantly outweighs the cost of having to generate more and more material to avoid gaming.  Tough one, though.  (And, of course, like many others, I question the wisdom of the overall testing philosophy.)  

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    But we also have talking animals.  So speech is a common denominator.  Factor that out, you’re left with things that can run and things that can’t.  And sure, you could see how an aggressive pineapple might make a crow or a moose wary, but unlike the reader, the crow and the moose have to make their bets before they see how the story turns out and learn the moral. 

    In all seriousness, though, I would be surprised if there weren’t questions on these tests that are far worse than this one, but which aren’t making the newspapers because they don’t involve talking pineapples. That’s what worries me.

  • KitchenSink

    Did anyone else notice that the third grade test (Books 2 and 3) did not have Planning Pages for extended writing?  For some reason the fourth and fifth grade tests did.  What the hell is going on with this company?

  • http://twitter.com/BNiche B

    Good points. The 3rd grade test only had a notes page for the listening section, but nothing else.

  • Guest

     My kids had no where to plan their extended responses. It confused them.

  • Angie Raynar

    I think #8 is the owl because in the end, the moral is that pineapples don’t have sleeves, which is what the owl said. If its important enough to be the moral of the story, then it must be pretty important.

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