Comments on: Teachers give new Regents exam scoring system mixed reviews

By: guest

guest — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:32:00 +0000

Several points to you. Would “cheating” be so prevelent if the Regents were not being used in the warped way thgey are being used today? As I’ve said, they were never developed nor meant to be used to evaluate and grade teachers and schools.

Of course in a large department where you were grading 450 or 500 Algebra papers say, almost all the time the teacher aqssigning the grades didn’t know the kid anyway. It was just a paper that had to be graded and a number assigned to a problem.

I don’t know about the papers you grade. In math, a committee of teachers take some of the sample answers to the pre-tests and make recommendations as to the reltive score each should get. These are not rubrics by the way. These are sample answers. There are detailed rubrics of just what should constitute a “3″ on a “4″ credit question. Of course, there was nothing absolute that they were right and everybody else wrong. Technically the chief rating officer in a school is the Principal who was always allowed to substitute his (well in thge high schools the AP of that subject) professional judgment as long as it was consistant with proper pedagogy. No permission was needed from SED. Did this happen often? No. Of course, we’ve seen the last few years what that could lead to.l

Finally papers were always audited by SED, random exams each exam period and comments made. Over the years, several times they audited our regents exam papers in math, with the “scrubbing” that you are so bitter about. Not once, was a paper bounced.

Life was so much simpler and better for kids when we had human feelings about and were not treated as cogs in a machine and numbers on a spread sheet. That sir is the major problem in education today.

By: Philip Nobile

Philip Nobile — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 01:39:00 +0000

The best case scrubbing you describe is the start of the slippery slope leading to today’s uncontrollable, widespread Regents tampering. Yes, there is great temptation to manufacture an extra point for a student in desperate need to graduate. For want of a point, the student’s life could take a very bad turn. Playing hangman with your own students can be excruciating. Affirmative scrubbing is inevitable when Regents are graded by the students’s own teachers. Add to that the less humanitarian motives for inflation, and now factor in the current extortionary pressure on teachers to pass students at any cost. Only blind grading can end the city’s Regents crime spree.

Note: (1) the English and Social Studies essays have two readers and detailed rubrics. Therefore no single person’s subjective judgement can be determinative. Full point differences are averaged. If more than a point difference, a third reader is required, his decision is final, and I suppose, subjective to some extent. But I don’t think you were referring to the third reader.

(2) As far as I know, Regents never required re-reading English and Social Studies exams with scores just below 65 to see if points were missed. The re-read requirement pertains only to math and earth science tests.

By: Anx

Anx — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:31:00 +0000

question If it was your kid what do you think should be done with the grade?
Lets say it was the best your child could do and not passing would hold your child from ever getting their high school diploma.
Tell me what should happen.
I have had scores of learning disabled students who were in this situation. Tell me what to do.

By: guest

guest — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:28:00 +0000

Here’s the problem. If these exams were totally objective, that is there is no doubt about the scoring say all multiple choice or short answers with no part credit, I would agree. The standard has to be set somewhere. But…

Many of these scores on essay or longer answers are very very subjective and not black or white issues. The same was true 49 years ago when I began teaching. At that time, we didn’t have to worry about the results of the Regents exams determining bonuses or sanctions for the school and teachers or anything like that. Two completely honest graders could look at a student’s response and reach slightly different conclusions. You wouldn’t want your kid to miss out on something because of a subjective decision, the luck of the draw as to which teacher assigned the credit. So of course the marginal papers were reviewed and yes sometimes we stretched a bit but it wasn’t done because there was something in it for us. It was basically the right thing to do.

It is their determination and idiotic things like bonuses, merit pay and grading of schools and teachers that has led to this nonsense. I will repeat something I said earlier. The only purpose of the Regents exams was to standardize the curriculum of specific subjects such as biology, chemistry and the like and enable SUNY, who were the only ones who actually looked at these exams (other colleges throughout the country used the Achievement Tests now known as SAT2 to serve the same purpose). Period. They were never intended to rate teachers and schools. This whole nonsense is just that, nonsense. A kid is not going to Harvard if he or she gets a 65 on a Regents exam rather than a 64 (which in the case of some of these idiotic exams might be 28 credits out of 87 rather than 27. It is a diservice to kids not to be able to look at marginal papers and give kids the benefit of the doubt where doubt exists.

By: I noticed that...

I noticed that... — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:06:00 +0000

Do you remember when students only needed a Regents score of 55 to pass? What about the students who got a 54 or 53? Would you like to lower it to a 45? Then we continue with the same lamentation of the students who received a 44 or 43? I strongly believe in giving students, not a few, but all, a chance in life; however, we must also set standards. Otherwise, you are pushing kids forward without any mastery. Do you really want that?

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:31:00 +0000

But what about the kids who scored a 63?

By: Philip Nobile

Philip Nobile — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Affirmative tampering, what a great idea–graduating not a few but thousands of kids, mostly black and brown, who can’t pass Regents tests after intensive prepping. Open that door and you get a deluge of cheating from desperate principals, APs, and teachers driven by less humane motives like bonuses, etc. Teachers like Eckleburgtj (if a teacher) are like doctors who give their sick patients placebos instead of prescribed pills. It’s called malpractice. I dare Eckleburgtj to disclose his/her real identity and position.

By: Philip Nobile

Philip Nobile — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:52:00 +0000

By: Eckleburgtj

Eckleburgtj — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:34:00 +0000

I think you are a mental case and shouldn’t even be teaching.

By: Eckleburgtj

Eckleburgtj — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:28:00 +0000

Oh please, for God’s sake…is it such a huge crime to bump up a kid’s score from 64 to 65? This is what we are talking about here! Show some humanity. We are talking about giving a few kids a chance in life.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:01:00 +0000

Thought it was Pearsons

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:58:00 +0000

I took part in process thought it went great! Schools and teachers that were SCRUBBERS could no longer do so. That is the way it should be. Any teacher trying to lower another schools stats by grading a students paper more harshly then they would their own should not be in the classroom. I never heard of such talk - we are all in this together – we are all in the mayors cross hairs. Teachers should have used the new testing as a way to brainstorm and strengthen our ties as union members not to destroy the next guy or girls career. Union and its members are pathetic and I am embarrassed.

By: John

John — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:49:00 +0000

Comparing what high school and middle school teachers do to elementary schools is like comparing apples to oranges. We face completely different challenges on all levels. Yet the DOE is requiring upper level teachers to adhere to elementary pedagogical practices and with that the expectations have dropped and now students are not making it in college. Go figure! Another point elementary teachers are to blame for us losing SENIORITY 2 contracts ago. I think we might need separate unions!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Of course the DOE will make them take it over – of course after they blame the teachers and the school. DUH!

By: Davon

Davon — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 01:57:00 +0000

Shipping the tests to other schools, I see some of them getting lost along the way. And if that happens, what the Department going to say, “Oops?” and tell them to take it over again?

By: A teacher

A teacher — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Our school was also chosen. We had to listen to the phase out school teachers (who hate us passionately!) grading our students’ exams, and literally cheering aloud every time they could take a point away.We heard all sorts of derogatory remarks about our students’ work.

While the students may have deserved to lose points according to the rubric, the unprofessional atmosphere was something else.

By: Daskala

Daskala — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:20:00 +0000

I don’t mean to offend, but as an 8th grade English teacher I have suffered my students’ ELA short and extended writing responses graded by other teachers from other schools. Also, the “graders” were NOT all middle school English teachers. Can you imagine the inconsistency? Then, on top of that, the results affected MY teacher report card.

I feel that if the elementary and middle school teachers have to suffer this process, then it should be continued into high-school. It is not fair otherwise.

The only other solution is to allow ALL teachers to grade their own students’ tests, but I do not see that happening.

By: Bluethezoom

Bluethezoom — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:57:00 +0000

There is really no appeal procedure. While a parent or student can appeal the grade to the school, the school, according to SED, cannot rescore or even look at the exam again without being subject to discplinary action. According to the regulation, when the appeal cannot be resolved at the “local” (read school level), the school may request a review by the Superintendent who can then, if h/she supports the school/parent, have the “exams” looked at by another school. Why plural? Because the school can only request an appeal if the principal believes that the “teacher grading committee miscored more than 5% of the papers” or there were computer mistakes on “less than 5% of the papers.” What principal will willfully argue that the “grading committee” did not do their job or look at student papers and risk “discplinary action?” Students across the state will be losing appeals and retaking exams to gain that elusive point.

By: someone who cares

someone who cares — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:58:00 +0000

They will need to have unbiased grading auditors to keep everyone in check. I think it’s a good idea. We sometimes unconsciously grade our own students high. I agree that Regents scores especially around the 65 mark are abnormally high.

By: Philip Nobile

Philip Nobile — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:18:00 +0000

The human factor will always produce small point differentials in grading. But blind grading is the best and no-brain response to the temptation to inflate scores of known students. The rest is detail,