As noted, previously, the Regents approved extending the temporary APPR rules at yesterday’s meeting. As reported in the Democrat and Chronicle, The new regulations “add an appeals process for teachers whose students showed poor growth on last year’s state exams but performed well the previous year. In order to appeal, the teacher much have received a positive rating — either ‘effective’ or ‘highly effective’ — on the observation portion of their rating.”
The law also requires NYSED to re-examine “the statistical tabulations used to calculate student growth on the standardized tests” and to “require state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia to craft a letter to Cuomo and lawmakers, outlining the various areas of the evaluation law that are ripe for improvement.”
Additionally, as reported in the New York Times, (via Perdido Street School) Commissioner Elia announced at the meeting that they will be reducing the length of the tests: “some multiple choice questions would be shaved off the math assessments and a number of passages would be cut from the reading exams taken next year. A spokeswoman for the Education Department said that the tests would be shortened for students in each grade, and that they would be trimmed further in 2017.”
Once again, these are all good things, but they are all-half measures without any real teeth that don’t address the underlying issues. As the Times article says:
The announcement on Wednesday on test length, however, seemed unlikely to quiet critics.“Half a disaster is still a disaster,” said Loy Gross, a co-founder of the parent activist group United to Counter the Core, who added shortening the tests was just tinkering around the edges of a very large problem.“And no,” she added, “it’s not going to appease parents who will continue to opt their kids out of tests.”
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