Third Graders' Test Compromised!

This is perfect: In the midst of all of the bluster with the Mayor's plan to end social promotion and that the Department of Education is run by consultants, it seems that on the day public school third graders were to take their important make-or-leave-back reading test, four of the schools had an advance look at the test. Ha! In standard standardized prep procedures, kids were give practice questions and answers from the 2003 exam to work with by their teachers. But it seems that the schools were not supposed to have those questions and answers - because extra exam books are supposed to be turned in. And because some of the same questions and answers appeared on this year's exam. D'oh! Some kids noticed, "Some of the stories were new and some were old," - stories like "Make a Diorama," "What Lessons Did Johnny Learn?" and "Harvey's Hamburgers." About four schools are being investigated, leaving about 500 of the city's 80,000 third graders in a lurch about when they are going to take the make-up.

Gothamist wants to make a film about the high-stakes world of passing the third grade exam, and possibly about the underground cheating that occurs in it. It will be like Cheaters meets Best in Show with a splash of Billy Madison.

New Yorkish has a sample of the reading exam.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on April 22, 2004 11:01 AM

Comments [rss]

Jen

Oooh, good call about doing a documentary. A couple years ago, the Times' Jacques Steinberg did a nice series of articles about a teacher (middle class, white) who taught at an inner city school. I was riveted by that.

Seand

How about a documentary? There are a couple of angles. A quick and dirty one focuses on a few kids before, during, and after the exam--kids who are likely to get mixed results. It might be so serendipitous to catch the sort of random hijinks that happened this year. Alternatively, you might be dedicated and follow a few kids who pass and fail and see what that means for their lives a few years out--the Hoops Dreams approach.

corie

I'm with Kojak. That's why the Regents exams of the 1990's were so easy-- questions were rotated and you could memorize them. That's how I aced math but learned nothing.

Kojak

Its Common Practice for teachers to use older tests to help kids with the up coming Exams. They've been doing it with the Regents and the City-Wide tests for Years. Its not the teacher's fault the City and the State are too lazy to Make new test problems for the kids to work on.