Last week, NYC's third-graders took the much-ballyhooed reading test; today, the math test awaited them.
Thousands of third-graders in the Bronx and city were put to the test once again Tuesday, this time in math...
Students must pass both the math and reading exams in order to move onto fourth-grade. It's part of Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education's plan to end social promotion. The new policy has divided parents, with some threatening to keep their kids home on the day of testing.
Well, 98.2% of NYC's kids took the reading test, so I doubt any fewer than that will take the math. And what's up with the final sentence of this WABC news article?
It is estimated that 15,000 kids could fail, which is nearly one in five of the city's third graders. In fact, last January, the city's department of education issued letters putting nearly 32,000 students into the "promotions in doubt" category. That uncertainty could continue for months.
The lowest-scoring children will have a second chance after summer school...If they don't pass the second test, they could be forced to repeat the entire grade.
Low scoring kids can move on as long as their teachers can demonstrate that they have tried everything.
"Have tried everything"? What on earth is that supposed to mean? Students who fail both attempts at the exams can appeal the decision in the hopes of being promoted, but this comment suggests that as long as kids try everything, even if they fail, they can pass. I don't think that's what the NYC government has in mind.
Also, third-graders who were recent immigrants and thus exempt from the reading exam still have to take the math exam, which is full of word problems:
The math test will be available in Spanish, Chinese and Haitian Creole, but schools are often on their own in finding oral translators for Bengali, Urdu, Korean and dozens of other languages spoken by public school students.
Educators and children's advocates say it's hard enough finding one translator who can stand by a student to read a math problem, much less translators for all the students who need them, especially when schools don't have funds for the service...
Several children and immigrants groups have been discussing suing the city if they find Chancellor Joel Klein's third-grade retention policy discriminates against immigrants.
While the definition of "discriminates" is most likely being defined rather loosely here, the critics have a point. There's no reason on earth to load up a crucial math exam for third-graders with word problems, when even the smartest kids are still working on learning to read well. Word problems can be great for measuring how well an examinee knows when and how to apply mathematical rules, but the assumption is that all examinees are on a level playing field when it comes to actually reading the words in the problems. The city would have a better leg to stand on if the math exam wasn't measuring both reading and math skills.
Here's last year's grade 4 exam. As far as word problems go, these aren't too bad. They're not too wordy, and they're pretty direct. But an argument could be made for having most of the test resemble questions 1, 2, and 3, as opposed to all the word and graphical problems that follow.
Posted by kswygert at April 27, 2004 04:28 PM