New York schoolkids will be used as “guinea pigs” in upcoming tests that don’t count but take up valuable classroom time, parent leaders say.
Over the next three weeks, nearly 250,000 students in grades 3 to 8 — including 88,000 at 774 city elementary and middle schools — have been tapped to take experimental “field tests” so that for-profit companies can try out items for future exams on the taxpayers’ dime.
“Our kids are guinea pigs,” said Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union. “Parents are not aware that their children are being forced to sit for these guinea-pig tests.”
Elementary and middle-school kids will do a dry run on 470 multiple-choice questions and 360 written-response items in math and English, state officials told The Post. Each school will test one grade in either subject. Some will try doing tests for the first time on computers.
In addition, tens of thousands of students in 500-plus public high schools have begun tackling trial questions in 10 Regents subjects.
The city Department of Education said families will be informed about the trial exams but so far has kept them hush-hush. Little advance notice will deny parents the chance to “opt out” if they choose, advocates say.
“We haven’t been told a thing,” said Noah Gotbaum, a parent and member of the District 3 Community Education Council on the Upper West Side. “They want these tests to go ahead, and they don’t really respect parents’ wishes.”
Michael Reilly, president of CEC 31 in Staten Island, agreed. “From what I’m hearing, parents don’t even know what a field test is.” He called it “free labor” for the testing companies. “We’re taking 45 minutes of instruction time. There’s a lot more important things that schools can use that 45 minutes for.”
‘Our kids are guinea pigs. Parents are not aware that their children are being forced to sit for these guinea-pig tests.’
- Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union
At Teachers College Community School in Harlem, whose former principal committed suicide in April 2015 after allegedly cheating on the state Common Core exams, parents say the new principal, Michelle Verdiner, has kept parents in the dark.
“She hasn’t sent any document home or given parents any details on what the test is about,” said Sanayi Beckles-Canton, president of Community Education Council 5. Beckles-Canton has been distributing a sample “opt-out” letter for parents. Verdiner did not return a call Friday.
While students are given 40-45 minutes to complete the tests, teachers and administrators must spend more time planning, preparing and executing the strictly controlled exercise.
Directions issued by the state say teachers must “help students approach the field testing in a relaxed, positive way.” But the instructions do not say whether or how to explain the purpose. Experts say kids who know the tests don’t count will not try as hard, thus skewing the results.
All the trial items were developed by Pearson, a vendor the state Education Department dropped after a series of blunders such as confusing test questions. Pearson’s five-year, $32 million contract ended Dec. 31, but the state extended it through June for $2.6 million.
Another vendor, Questar Assessment Inc., will administer the exams under a new, five-year $44.7 million state contract.
“Children are being used and classroom time given to a private vendor so it can make marketable tests,” said Fred Smith, a former DOE test analyst. He said the official math and English exams given in April and May had 328 hidden trial items. Kids had no idea which items counted or not.
Davids said students who take the so-called stand-alone field tests should be paid — a suggested $25 each, she said.
A Questar spokesman declined to comment on compensation for kids.
State spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said field testing is standard practice and the best way to ensure that good questions free of racial or gender bias are picked for the actual exams.
Schools do not get extra funding for the field tests, she said.
See which students from which schools are impacted by the “field tests”: