Parents Weigh in on NYC’s Increased Test Prep Efforts (NY)

May 4, 2011

Some parents see the frequent test prep as much-needed help and reinforcement for their kids; others say it hurts the learning process.

This week, New York City students in grades 3 through 8 are taking the annual standardi zed tests that will measure their achievement in math and reading. The New York Daily News reports that teachers and kids have been practicing for the exams for weeks, or even months, hoping to reverse a dramatic drop in scores recorded last year.

But this time it’s the parents who are rebelling by saying that teachers are applying too much pressure. Parent activist Erica Perez, parent of kids in Junior High School 203 and Public School 345 in Brooklyn, says:

    “There’s extra pressure this year on the teachers and on the students because the teachers feel it. They’re pushing the children, but not in the way that’s conducive for their learning.”

79% percent of JHS 302 students failed the state’s reading exam last year while only 28% passed in math. As a result, this year the school is facing closure if it doesn’t show improvement in this round of exams. The same problem is confronting many schools, as the city’s pass rates for reading exams dropped from 69% to 42% and math pass rates went down from 82% to 54% in 2010.

Although the NYC Board of Education allows students to be held back for failing state exams, they are not the only ones with something at stake. The city now links teacher pay to test scores and might soon release teacher ratings that will be based on student performance.

As a result, teachers all across the city are ratcheting up test preparations. Perez’s daughter Evangelina, who is a 6th grader, now attends after-school prep classes three days a week. Schools like PS 151 in Queens are dedicating three periods per day to test prep, and students were encouraged to take prep packets home over spring break.

Sam Coleman, a third-grade teacher in Brooklyn, says that since March his school has been spending over 2.5 hours of every day exclusively on preparation:

    “We do a lot of great stuff during mos t of the year, but we hit this season and we end up putting that all aside,” Coleman said. “You can make it not a total waste [of] time, but it’s still not good teaching.”

Some parents praised the efforts by the schools. Cristina Plaza, whose son Isaiah has been getting at-home tutoring since October courtesy of his Brooklyn school PS 145, said that she was grateful for it because it was a great help to her son. But Sonya Hampton, parent of a 7th grader in PS 149 in Harlem, said the focus on test prep had taken the joy out of learning for her daughter Jerica:

    “Learning shouldn’t be like that rigorous job that you hate going to,” said Hampton. “They’re test-prepping us to death, but we don’t have a choice.”