Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, August 13, 2011

New York, in Contract With Pearson, Lays Out Rules for State Tests - NYTimes.com

New York, in Contract With Pearson, Lays Out Rules for State Tests - NYTimes.com

In $32 Million Contract, State Lays Out Some Rules for Its Standardized Tests

Standardized tests in English and math taken by students in New York State are about to become slightly less tricky.

Metro Twitter Logo.

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow@NYTMetro for New York breaking news and headlines.

Beginning next spring, a new company, Pearson, will write the standardized tests that the Education Department gives to nearly all third through eighth graders. The department switched to Pearson this year after its contract with another company, CTB/McGraw-Hill, expired.

The department has advised the new company that catch-all answer choices known for


More Complex Picture Emerges in Rutgers Student’s Suicide

Court papers filed this week offer a more complex picture of the Rutgers freshman who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September and of his roommate, who used a webcam days earlier to spy on him in an intimate encounter with another man.

Daniel Barry for The New York Times

Dharun Ravi stands accused of crimes related to his spying on Mr. Clementi.

Metro Twitter Logo.

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow@NYTMetro for New York breaking news and headlines.

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Tyler Clementi killed himself.

The roommate, Dharun Ravi, who stands accused of several crimes related to his spying on Tyler Clementi, emerges from the documents as a young man who wanted to seem blasé about his roommate’s sexuality but was fixated on it. Mr. Clementi comes across as a teenager who was ill at ease with people and worried a