Obama's Top Education Adviser Doesn't Like Regents Exams

A "top New York education official" tells today's Post that local education authorities don't want Linda Darling-Hammond, head of President-elect Obama's education-policy working group, to have a big role at the US Department of Education. The concern is that Hammond won't support Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein's reforms and that she opposes the state-required Regents exams, which students must pass in order to graduate (some schools are exempt). In a 2001 legal brief, Hammond said exams like "Regents exams are a limited measure of actual learning and performance, are prone to substantial error, and have limited predictive validity regarding students' abilities to accomplish other real-world tasks or to succeed in college." A Bush administration education official criticized Hammond as one of many who "don't like standards, don't like testing, don't like accountability," while high school students are more likely to favor her as longtime opponents of "taking tests up until July."

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By Billy Parker in News on December 16, 2008 3:19 PM

Comments [rss]

jpeditor

Who needs Regents exams?

As long as the future obamunists learn that America is evil, that sharia law is better than our Constitution, that America alone should cut all use of oil, and as long as they are also taught fisting, America will be a better place.

/sarcasm off...

nycnewsjunkie

Hey lets be like most other states and just give out HS Diplomas like toilet paper.

Oh, and why not get rid of 12th grade to save money and classroom space.

happymisanthrope

Wait? How does it not reflect knowledge of a subject? The Regents is just a state mandated final exam for a certain subject. To me, that's far more accurate than some tests (I'm looking at you Texas and the SAT) that only measures reading and math ability.

nivek

Don't forget that the Regents are too freaking easy.

If this is our idea of standardized testing, it's no wonder we're so behind compared to the rest of the first world countries for average education quality.

Shinobi Shaw

Ides, the Whites are dropping as well.

It's the Asians that seem to be rising.

ides_of_march

The only purpose of public education is to turn the little darlings into obedient, brainwashed future democrat voters.

pete

Regents tests=a whole market of new NY State only textbooks and curriculums for taxpayers to pay for and politicians to get kickbacks

ides_of_march

Black and hispanic kids fail them more than others so the test must be at fault, not to mention racially biased.

That's just too bad for the white and Asian kids who study harder and do well on the tests. Individual merit? What's that?

bsalamon

The problem with the Regents was never the test it was the schools/teachers being told to teach one thing and having the regents test something different.

Either way, as far as standardized testing goes, 4th graders now have to take standardized tests, which don't actually test their knowledge. They just test their ability to take a test. That is where the problem is.