This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

Standardized Tests Still Controversial for Local Schools

In 2001, a group of 8th graders boycotted a newly implemented state science exam. Nine years later, school officials say standardized tests are still not an appropriate method of assessment for Scarsdale's students.

Scarsdale High School juniors last week sat for a Regents exam in English, one of many state-mandated tests they will take during their school careers.

According to the most recent 2007-2008 New York State School Report Card Comprehensive Information Report, 78% of Scarsdale students passed the English Regents that year with a score of 85 or better.

For all students in New York, the report indicates that only 33% scored at least an 85 on the exam.

The results are similar across the board. On Regents exams in history, science, and math, Scarsdale students score significantly above average compared to the middling state scores. 

The issue of state standardized testing has a somewhat turbulent past for Scarsdale schools.

According to The New York Times, in May 2001 only 95 of 290 eighth graders who were supposed to take a newly implemented state science exam did so. The boycott of the exam was urged by many of the community's parents and was widely publicized in the media.

Richard Mills, who served as State Education Commissioner from 1995 to 2009, said in an October 2001 follow-up article by The New York Times that test scores indicated that many Scarsdale students were not meeting standards put forth by the state.

"'What's powerful about the assessment system is that it allows the school to see that every child is meeting the standard,'" Mills said in the article.

Some Scarsdale parents, like Deborah Rapaport, told The New York Times that standardized tests are not an adequate way to measure learning.

"'Many students do not perform well on standardized tests. These kinds of tests reduce content, they reduce imagination, they limit complex curriculum, they add stress and cost money,'" Rapaport said in the article.

In an interview with Patch, Superintendent Michael McGill recounted the 2001 boycott: "A number of parents began by expressing their concern that their kids seemed to be just taking more and more tests."

He said that more standardized exams took away from teachers having adequate time to cover new material and that teachers were instead holding reviews on 6th and 7th-grade material during regular class time.

Before the May exams, McGill said that parents "didn't like the losses we were suffering. They decided to organize a boycott of the assessments."

"The State Deptartment of Education was obviously not pleased. We engaged in a series of discussions with them and eventually the world sort of moved on, and it became apparent that there's no way that this one district is going to change the federal law," said McGill.

Fast-forward eight years, and standardized testing is still a contensious issue for Scarsdale's schools.

McGill said, "we here in Scarsdale continue to be concerned about standardized testing."

"We're not suggesting that these tests don't have use for everyone else, but for our purposes they aren't as useful as they could be and they take time away from instruction," he said.

"What teachers end up doing is teaching for the test and having kids do exercises that are exactly like the exercises on the test. At the end of the year, they're focusing on material that is likely to be on the test," he said.

Scarsdale school's Director of Special Education Dr. Michael Mendelson feels that the state may be fulfilling obligations set forth by the federal government, especially after the Bush Administration signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.

"I think that the intent of the state tests in many ways is to comply with federal requirements. I'm not certain that if the federal requirements were different whether or not we'd have the same tests," he said.

Scarsdale High School Vice-Principal Kelley Hamm said that the state exams seem to put less stress on students than other standardized tests like the SATs and Advanced Placement exams, which, since the district's implementation of Advanced Topics courses in 2008, are optional for students.

"I don't think the Regents exams are a major source of stress. We don't place much weight on them in terms of their grades," said Hamm, who has worked in the district for 30 years, both as an administrator and social studies teacher.

"The difficulty with standardized tests is that they are, unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all solution," said Hamm.

McGill used an analogy of traveling the Mississippi River to describe the differences between the Scarsdale district's educational aims and those, as he views, of the state.

He said that while the state is on a steamboat headed for New Orleans, Scarsdale's administrators aim to provide students with a canoe that allows them to explore along the way.
 
"What we're trying to do is develop and deeper understanding of the river instead of getting through it so we can reach the goal," he said.

"If the issue is for us to be accountable to the public, that could be done far less intrusively and with far less testing than is being done now," said McGill. "From our point of view, there are better and more effective ways to demonstrate accountability without the drawbacks of the current system."

Communications officers at the New York State Education Department did not respond to inquiries from Patch.

Find out what's happening in Scarsdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?