Dinowitz argues Regents exams distort what schools measure and value
Dinowitz says whatever gets assessed gets investment, but Regents exams do not measure what we want students to do or be. He cites ELA exams that do not require reading a whole book, global studies exams without independent research, and low algebra passing thresholds.
How do you know you're doing a good job?
We have measures of assessment, and I see time and again that whatever gets assessed gets the investment.
Whatever you're incentivized to do, you will do.
But what gets measured?
The Regents exams.
Yet in my time as a high school special education teacher here in our great city, it quickly became painfully clear that the Regents exam, the measure of whether or not a student graduates, never actually measured what we want our students to do
and who we want them to be.
ELA exams that don't actually require you to read a whole book, global studies exams that don't ask our students to conduct their own research and independently find multiple sources to support or refute a claim.
The list goes on and on.
And to make matters worse, they aren't always rigorous.
Just sometimes convoluted.
Here in the city, we consider 65 passing, yet the algebra regents requires the students to earn 35% of the points to get a passing.
In other words, you can get half the multiple choice questions right, none of the short answer right, and still walk away with a 62, very close to passing, but hardly a measure of whether a student deeply understands the material.