I’ve been teaching since 1984, so I’ve seen a lot of tests come and go. I have to admit, though, the geniuses in Albany have now managed create the worst tests I’ve ever seen. Actually they don’t create them, because they’d never get their hands dirty doing actual work. Instead, they pay companies and psychometricians to develop this stuff. They sit in air-conditioned offices all day instead of sweltering trailers, so they know better than teachers do.
When I was in high school, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I took the English Regents exam. We had to prove we read books, knew how to write, even spell. Now, you get four articles arguing an issue, and you have to copy and reword evidence. You don’t create arguments, ever. You copy, and sort of explain why argument A is better than argument B.
I teach students formulas to satisfy this requirement. This is not teaching them how to write. Though the Regents exam is no longer called Common Core, it still is. One of the building blocks of Common Core was David Coleman’s famous assertion, “No one gives a s–t what you think or feel.”
That’s why there’s no consideration of anything resembling writer voice on the grading rubric. In fact, I know students who cannot write a coherent sentence who’ve passed the English Regents exam with grades in the high 80s.
My students are English Language Learners. I read assignments from some of them and think they’d benefit from basic English instruction. But they don’t need it to pass the Regents, and they don’t need it to test out of ESL. So why should they bother?
That’s why many students, English Language Learners and native English speakers alike, all of whom get excellent grades, cannot write interesting college application essays to save their lives. With Common Core, it’s possible no one has asked them to write anything worth reading ever.
Counselors are shocked at the abysmal quality of college essays. A college rep I know told me if the essays were bad, he knew students had written them themselves. If they were good, he had no clue.
It’s terrible we treat our children like that. We’re obsessed with “college and career readiness.” Not only do these tests fail to predict that, but they also fail to prepare students for the inevitable issues they will face in their daily lives.
Have an issue with something you purchased? How is a Common Core essay going to help you? It won’t help you with research either, because you’ll need your own source materials.
There are also several reading passages and multiple-choice questions. The questions tell you which numbered lines the answers are on. One of my students did particularly well on a quiz I’d borrowed from an old exam. How did you do that, I asked him? His last teacher told him he shouldn’t waste time reading the passages. Just go to the line and find the answer.
Our ELA exam requires prior knowledge of nothing, and tests neither reading nor writing.
I spent weeks administering a state speaking test for ELLs, a portion of the NYSESLAT, in which there is no conversation whatsoever. We read, and students respond to the printed texts, right in front of their faces. They spit the info back, and who knows whether or not the students can comprehend, let alone participate in spontaneous conversation?
Albany has created the total package: high-stakes English exams that require neither reading, writing, speaking, nor listening skill. They’ve also cut direct English instruction to ELLs by a factor of 33-100%. Now that our tests require so little language use, why bother teaching them the language at all?
If I were a Regent, I’d change my name and move to another state. I’m just a lowly teacher, though, so I’ll continue to help these kids as best I know how.
Goldstein is an ESL teacher and UFT chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School.
