The Southold Board of Education has taken a stand against field testing.
According to Southold Schools Superintendent David Gamberg, the New York State Education Department had decided to make field testing mandatory.
The field tests, he said, are exams for students in grades three to eight, and consist of practice questions to develop appropriate questions for future assessment tests in English Lanuage Arts and Math, which are given in April every year.
“Southold is taking the position that there has been an excessive amount of testing,” which, Gamberg said, lowers the quality of instruction and reduces students’ learning opportunities.
To that end, Gamberg consulted with an attorney and crafted a resolution stating the board’s opposition to the field testing. “Our strongly held belief is that the nature of field testing compounds an already difficult problem,” Gamberg said.
At issue, the superintendent said, is the physical amount of time spent in preparation, during and after all the mandated testing students are subject to today. “It has a compounding effect when tests are high stakes. We want to tamp down, and we are not alone in this,” he said.
Due to the fact that the tests “don’t count” Gamberg said anecdotal evidence suggests that students are not taking the field tests “as seriously as you might think. They might fill in anything. If you’ve been tested 10 to 20 hours over the course of a testing cycle by the time you get to these tests, you are done. We are calling on the state not to make field tests mandatory.”
In the past, the tests have always been voluntary, he said.
In addition, the resolution states that “the Board of Education believes the testing companies realize a commercial profit by using children and taxpayer resources to advance their business plans.”
Gamberg said a large number of school districts have adopted similar resolutions.
BOE chair Paulette Ofrias said the resolution should be sent to the appropriate state representative. “We want to show that we take it seriously,” she said.
