2010 Grade 3-8 Testing Window Opens a Crack
Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 9:37 am by tomrogers
The State Education Department recently released its revised examination administration schedule for the 2009-10 school year. This schedule implements the move of the 3-8 tests for English Language Arts and Math to the May timeframe.
The SED invites questions on the implementation for inclusion in a “Q&A” document to be released shortly. Questions may be forwarded through the Office of State Assessment, or The Council.
In advance of that document, we believe one clarification may be useful – the column titled “Administration Dates” indicates the range of dates on which the first day of testing must occur. For multi-day exams, the administration may continue beyond the date range specified (for example, to accommodate students with disabilities or to conduct make-ups). Obviously all other rules for administration of these exams remain unchanged (all students in a single district must start the same test on the same day, etc.). We believe this clarification will be spelled out in more detail in the SED Q&A document, once released.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 9:37 am and is filed under Guidance and Announcements, Standards & Assessments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 30th, 2009 at 8:55 am
The revised schedule for 3-8 testing is problematic for a number of reasons. First, the time frame for testing expands into May-June. Many schools including ours do not have air conditioning. Thus there are potential environmental issues. Second, I am concerned about teachers and preparation with the expanded schedule. Essentially, approx. 30% of the school year in terms of time will be devoted to testing(in some cases out of sequence). So if the Math for example remains on a March to March schedule but the testing is now pushed back to May, does that mean our teachers will have to have extra review for the test? It seems to me that chronological sequencing is off, and I am concerned that we will get more teaching to the test out of necessity rather than teaching for learning. That is just the tip of the iceberg, as we are not even addressing sub costs, what to do with other students with the expanded time frame, etc.