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CEC 20 says no to field testing

May 31, 2012 Denise Romano
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District 20’s Community Education Council unanimously passed a resolution on May 23 supporting parent’s concerns about New York State’s stand-alone field tests.

The field tests are assigned to third through twelfth graders throughout the state, at different times throughout the months of May and June. Some groups will test math and some groups will test ELA tests.

“They are testing the test questions. They don’t count for schools or students,” explained Laurie Windsor, president of CEC District 20. “But I think the clincher was that the recent tests with ELA and math included field questions already.”

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Students spent six days in April taking state mandated ELA and math tests, which includes 9 hours of testing for matriculated students and 18 hours for students with IEPs (individual education plans). On top of that, 30 percent of those test questions were field questions.

In addition, fourth and eighth graders are currently taking a state science lab test and have the state science written exam on June 4. Also, eighth graders who are taking Regents exams the third week of June will have less time to prepare because they will be taking field tests the week before.

“To do a stand alone [test] separate is above and beyond ridiculous,” Windsor said. “It just turned into testing, testing and testing. Where is the instructional time?”

Both teachers and parents have been outspoken with their opposition to the extra testing. New York City school teachers wrote an open letter to Chancellor Dennis Walcott and the Department of Education expressing their views.

“We feel that as teachers it is our responsibility to be responsive to the concerns of the parents whose children we serve, and we would like to support this most recent parent effort around the stand-alone field tests,” it states. “Secondly, as teachers we agree with parents that excessive testing is damaging to our students. “We have seen – and in many cases been forced to comply with – a narrowing of the curriculum and the neglecting of non-tested subjects. We think that the use of time for test preparation as well as the number of days taken up by tests and practice tests is unconscionable.”


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