A whole bunch of articles on the NYS tests.

Now, the sad thing is that getting a decent score on your fourth or seventh grade tests is important if you don't want to just go to the zoned middle or high school in the general program, because the schools look at those to determine admissions. So even though those tests are flawed up the wazoo, I'm not complaining too much this year because a. our local middle school is so-so at best and b. Ana actually did pretty well. She got a score that would be respectable bordering on great in normal years, but given that most students did really badly this year is actually, I'm thinking, pretty high. So even though I disapprove of the current style of tests for many reasons, I'm also thinking "Maybe she can get into a really good school!"

*sigh*

Test Scores Sink as New York Adopts Tougher Benchmarks

http://nyti.ms/14yeWet

http://nyti.ms/17zzZIn (a line graph of scores)

http://nyti.ms/14yPCF3 (some sample questions)

( Read more... )

Gotham Schools has a number of posts on the subject, including one of their own on the released test questions:

http://bit.ly/1cKCqxF

And another look at those math questions:

http://bit.ly/1cfE0d6