NY State Might Give Students Fewer Tests Soon

<span class="photo_caption">NYC Department of Education</span>

The New York State Department of Education says they may scale back on the number of standardized tests they administer in light of recent complaints from parents and teachers that there are too many tests. And the announcement likely warmed the hearts of many a bubble-filling public school student.

The state's gotten a lot of criticism over its more difficult Common Core curriculum, which has an increased focus on standardized testing. Teachers, unions and parents have all complained the new curriculum spends too much time preparing students for the tests, focusing more on rote memorization than critical thinking—now, state education commissioner John King Jr. has conceded there is "more testing than is needed" in certain districts. "The amount of testing should be the minimum necessary to inform effective decision-making,” he wrote in a letter to superintendents and principals this week.

The state DOE has come up with an alternate set of proposals for future testing, which include offering tests in students' native languages if they are struggling with English, eliminating an Algebra test that comes at the same time as the state-mandated Regents exam for certain eighth grade students, and getting rid of field tests, which are administered to help test makers figure out which questions should be eliminated from future exams.

Not everyone sees the DOE's move as substantial. "It’s duplicitous,” Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, a group that opposes the use of high-stakes tests, told the Times. “The political intention is to try to get students and parents to accept the bad system.” But with parents voicing concern that the Common Core is way too hard, the state has been holding forums to help work on some of the new curriculum's kinks, and mitigating testing is at least one small step. Now, if only those textbooks could arrive on time...