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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Perdido Street School: The ELA Regents Exam: Set Up By The Regents And The NYSED To Fail Both Students And Teachers

Perdido Street School: The ELA Regents Exam: Set Up By The Regents And The NYSED To Fail Both Students And Teachers:

The ELA Regents Exam: Set Up By The Regents And The NYSED To Fail Both Students And Teachers

There are two good pieces on the brutal scoring chart that the NYSED and Regents are using for the 2013 June ELA Regents exam.

Gotham Schools covered the story yesterday:

Bronx Center for Science and Math Assistant Principal Stephen Seltzer sent a letter to State Education Commissioner John King expressing frustration about the new conversion chart that has made it more difficult for students to pass the English Regents exam.

Seltzer writes that “the rubrics and conversion charts must be aligned and consistent, and both should be made available when teachers are preparing students, not at the time of the exam.”

In the letter, sent Thursday, Seltzer writes that there is a four-point difference in the June 2011 and 


The NY Times Got The Regents Test Grading System They Wanted

Back in August 2011, the editorial board of the NY Times decried the Regents grading system that had teachers grading tests in their own schools and called for a vaunted new system.

Here is that editorial in full:

There Has to Be a Better Way to Grade Tests

A task force appointed by the New York State education commissioner, John King Jr., is to report next month on ways to improve the integrity of the state’s educational testing system. New York has thus far escaped cheating scandals like the one that exploded in Atlanta. But troubling new developments have shown weaknesses in New York’s testing system that need to be fixed.

The annual standardized tests given in the lower grades and the Regents examination that high school students must pass to graduate now play a crucial role in decisions about how schools are 


Who Is Polakow-Suransky Kidding?

Michael Mulgrew outside of Stuyvesant High School, one of the Regents grading sites, today:

“Who was the genius who decided that it was a good idea to take all the tests that the children take and put them in trucks and send them to Connecticut to get scanned into systems so they can send them back here?” Mulgrew asked.

That's a very good question.

Why, it was the geniuses at