Dec 27, 2007 7:48 pm US/Eastern
Gotbaum: Too Much Testing In NYC Public Schools
Bloomberg Administration Not Taking Criticism Lightly
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Are the city's public school kids over-tested?
The city's public advocate says the answer is yes. And she's calling on the city to give them some relief.
But as CBS 2 HD has learned, the Bloomberg administration is fighting back.
Xavier Amaro has a bag full of work to get through this holiday.
"This is the packets they gave me," Amaro said, displaying the items to CBS 2 HD cameras. "This is another packet they gave me."
Those packets contain assessment tests, designed to measure his progress in reading and math.
"After you read each story you will answer questions about what you have read," Amaro read aloud.
The city requires him to take 10 of them a year. Add that to other exams, and Amaro's mother is crying uncle.
"The other day he was complaining he took three tests in one day," Judith Amaro said.
On Thursday Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum released a study showing that the average school kid is taking 12 tests a year.
"The schools seem to have turned into test prep factories," Gotbaum said. "The kids are inundated with test preparation."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-design of the school system has the Department of Education charting each student's progress in minute detail. Teachers feed assessment tests into the system's computer and receive back data that shows the student's strengths and weaknesses.
A spokesman for the department ridiculed Gotbaum's position.
"In trying to make a bogeyman of testing, the public advocate appears to oppose every measurement of student progress the city might administer. … Any educator could tell her that knowing what your students have learned and where they have weaknesses is fundamental to teaching and learning."
But Xavier is feeling overwhelmed.
"If we have lots of tests I get tired of it and sometimes I want to play and run around and do art and music," Xavier said.
The debate over testing is a national one that's been raging for years. It's likely to last long after Xavier has graduated from P.S. 187.
Gotbaum did not offer a detailed solution to what she called the testing glut, other than calling upon the schools to scale back the testing program.
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