Grading the N.Y.S. Regents: The Past, the Present...and the Future?
Whither Regents grading? I started grading N.Y.S. Regents exams twenty years ago. The system has been turned on its head by persons who manufactured a sub-par replacement founded on fundamentally flawed principles. These persons started with the premise that teachers are responsible for the standardized test grades of their students. They then view teachers as cheating scoundrels, not to be trusted, while putting ultimate faith in their own brains to tinker with and micromanage a system of great complexity.
In halycon days, teachers had nothing personal to gain or lose from the scores of their students. It was a time when bagels mixed with reaffirmations of collegial bonds as well as the underlying purposes of education. Teachers united in their commitment to the task at hand and to serve the academic needs of the community. Teachers would discuss appropriate scores for given answers, grading in a common room. Often, a teacher might read a response, share it with the group and ask advice on how others would interpret the answer.
In one particular instance from days of yore, a teacher read my student's paper. She was startled to find the student writing a thematic essay in part about the song "Fables of Faubus" by Charles Mingus. She asked me whether or not the student was fabricating his answer. I assured her that the student was a