Goals and Regents Exams

Current Hat: NY Rangers 2009 Second Season Hat

On Wednesday night I set 3 goals for Thursday: Workout, post a new blog post and read about regents exams. Well on thursday I didn't want to workout, but I did, and I blogged about that already. I read 3 short articles about NY Regents exams and now I'm going to blog about that.

To save money, NY state is looking to cancel 13 out of 17 Regents exams. This saves the department of education 13 million dollars. If you're like my mom, you don't know how this adds up to 13 million. There are certain costs to the exams. I believe most of the costs to create the test are relatively small. Teachers go to Albany to make the tests. Then of course we have to produce the test. Then teachers grade the test. So making and grading the tests are generally covered by Teacher Salaries. The big cost is the production and materials but also analyzing the tests. Teachers grade with a raw score. The tests are then sent away to see what the curve of the test should be and also if any of the questions are not valid.

I personally do not have a problem with ridding the state of 13 out of 17 exams. Opponents believe that without a test the standards will fall flat. I disagree. Teachers want to teach and they want the best for their children. The best = the standards. Of course in some situations the standards will not be meet in this scenario BUT progess will be made toward the standards. No teacher wants to sit in a classroom and have students not learn.

I think this would be a step in the right direction. There are too many high pressure tests out there. Students would already be tested every grade 3-8 in math, science, english and social studies in high stakes tests by this point. If you want me to teach to the test, you need to make the test better. I do think, however, that students will not do as well on these tests if you take most of the tests away.

In the end, NY state will not take these Regents exams away. The department of education is still responsible for the budgets cuts, which I fear means schools will be missing part of their state aid. Less money to use to prepare the students for the exams.

Now, the title of the post is two things, and I did touch on my goals, but let me go a bit further. My goals for tomorrow include: Changing the Litter Boxes, Starting my homework for wednesdays class, and to post another blog entry to let you know how it's working out.

Now, LETS GO RANGERS!