Teachers and principals are not taking kindly to a recent State Education Department decision to have students take a test in between their already-scheduled high stakes state exams.
State officials scheduled the field test, an experimental exam that doesn’t count toward schools’ and students’ progress, on May 4, between the English and math exams that all students in grades three through eight take. The new schedule means that over the course of a dozen days, students across New York will take three tests, leading administrators and teachers to worry that “test fatigue” will set in and affect students’ scores.
Schools are already working around a new test schedule this year that moved the English and math tests from January and March to May.