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Park Slope School Opts Out of Field Tests Given to Create Future Exams

By Amy Zimmer | May 27, 2016 11:59am | Updated on May 31, 2016 7:39am
 Students in grades 3 to 8 would take field tests any time between May 23 and June 10.
Students in grades 3 to 8 would take field tests any time between May 23 and June 10.
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Shutterstock / Andresr

BROOKLYN — A Park Slope elementary school voted unanimously this week to opt out of field tests — then posted their explanation online — in the latest salvo in the war over testing.

P.S. 321, after “careful discussion and consideration,” decided to refuse to administer the field tests — which help companies develop future exams but do little to bolster their children’s learning time, the high-performing elementary's School Leadership Team wrote on the school's website.

“As the school year comes rapidly to a close, students will benefit far more from an uninterrupted day of teaching and learning than from the administration of another standardized test,” P.S. 321’s SLT, which includes Principal Liz Phillips, wrote.

“Field tests exams do not provide parents, teachers or administrators with any information regarding each child’s progress but are used solely for research and development purposes for a for-profit testing company,” the team continued.

"We feel strongly that we must protect remaining instructional time."

The statement also criticized the fact that the field tests are given without notifying parents “despite repeated requests that they be informed.” 


The announcement is the latest example of a growing sentiment of parents who say they are fed up with taking instructional time away from kids — especially for administering a test that helps a for-profit test company but is not used at all to evaluate students.

Last year, parents from P.S. 9 in Prospect Heights refused the field tests and many schools in Long Island and upstate have also been vocal about opting out of field tests.

The state-administered field tests have been widely criticized for years, by many who accused testing companies including Pearson of using public school students as "guinea pigs."

This year, the state tapped 774 elementary and middle schools to administer the exams to roughly 88,000 of the city’s third through eighth graders between May 23 and June 10. Some 94 of these schools are administering the exams on computers, for the first time ever. The results are designed to help make next year’s state English and math exams.

Schools don’t tend to tell parents in advance about when the field tests will be administered, but families in the grassroots opt out movement quickly disseminated a publicly available list of schools on the state’s roster to help school communities organize their responses.

“Field testing is a critical part of the test development process in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the New York State Testing Program,” New York State Education Department spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said.

“Field tests contain questions that may only be used on New York State tests and benefit only our students and schools,” she said, adding, “Field tests are designed to be brief. They are designed so that they can be administered to students during a regular 40-minute class period.”

Fred Smith, a retired testing analyst for the DOE, questioned the use of “standalone” field tests, noting that the gold standard in the testing world is to embed practice questions during real tests, when students are treating the material more seriously.

“If the kids don’t care, and they’re not going to put out the effort, then the statistics you’re going to get are going to be skewed,” he said. “Standalone tests are unreliable.”

He noted that there have been many problems with the quality of questions on state tests in recent years — which the field tests evidently did little to help.

“Why are we repeatedly going back to something that doesn’t work?" Smith asked.