February 02, 2015

Mandatory field tests? Tell your NYS Regent to vote NO!

Author: Andy Pallotta, Executive Vice President
Source:  NYSUT Member Action Center

When, exactly, did New York state education policy become such a farce?

Stand-alone field tests provide unreliable data, yield misleading information and perpetuate faulty scoring of exams.

And the New York State Board of Regents is considering making them mandatory.

Take action now at the NYSUT Member Action Center to tell the New York State Board of Regents to vote NO on mandatory stand-alone field tests!

The New York State Board of Regents is considering changes to state regulations that would mandate stand-alone field tests that have historically been voluntary. These tests are experimental questions that Pearson, the state's contracted educational testing company, uses to "test" new questions to be used for future tests. However, the State Education Department has previously admitted that stand-alone field tests are "statistically unreliable."

I will continue to ask the same reasonable question until I actually get a reasonable answer: If we know these tests are unreliable, why on earth should they be mandatory?

Take action now at the NYSUT Member Action Center to tell the New York State Board of Regents to vote NO on mandatory stand-alone field tests!

Our students are already overburdened with too much testing, so we should not be subjecting them to more field tests, especially those that primarily benefit the private, for-profit test makers!

Take action right now; fight back against this obsession with over-testing our students!

In solidarity,

Andrew Pallotta
NYSUT Executive Vice President

P.S.: Please join me today in saying loud and clear — vote NO on mandatory stand-alone field tests!