Farmingdale School District's 4th grade students were faced with a challenge recently, when they took the new state assessment in Language Arts. And, administrators reported this week, they took the change in stride.

"We feel that the kids had the very best attitude we could hope for. They were very serious about the responsibility, and they recognized that it is a new and serious responsibility, but they weren't in a panic about it. So many of the stories that I saw on television or in the newspaper about it, talked about children and parents in a panic, and I'm never happy to hear that," said Farmingdale Schools Superintendent Gerard W. Dempsey, Jr. "And by all accounts, our teachers and our parents and our students took the right approach. They were serious and thoughtful and appropriate about it, but not panicky, so we're happy about that."

The assessment is the first of many new ones that districts throughout the state will see as part of the New York Department of Education's plan to raise learning standards.

"The state wants to make a major goal of early elementary education literacy, and they really want us to focus on all of the literacy skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening. This test combines at least three of them - reading, writing and listening," explained Dempsey. Districts are encouraged to incorporate speaking skills into the classroom, which he said Farmingdale is doing.

The new fourth grade assessment replaces the former state language arts examinations known as the PEP tests. Under that system, students were tested in reading in 3rd grade, and weren't tested in writing until 5th grade. Reading was tested again in 6th grade. The new assessment is also more rigorous than those tests, requiring, for example, the interpretation of more sophisticated passages and more analysis. "I think it's consistent with the whole approach of higher standards," commented Dempsey.

According to Eileen Lamdon, director of language arts for Farmingdale Schools, the community's fourth graders have expressed, primarily, positive feedback about the new assessment.

"Generally speaking, the children felt the multiple choice part was the easiest part of the test...They liked the listening...I interviewed them after the first day, and they thought that the selections were interesting, which was, I thought, a nice comment. The second part was listening, and generally speaking, they thought that was the second easiest. And, the third part, which was reading and responding - many of them said they liked the articles - but they thought that was a little more difficult," she said.

"They liked the stories. I think they probably had enough time for the last two parts. For the multiple choice part, the first part, I thought they could have used five or 10 more minutes added onto the time, because we want to see what the children know, not what the children guess at, and because the articles were long."

She added, "But I thought it was a good assessment, and I think generally speaking, the children were very positive about it. They thought it was hard, and they commented that they were the first ones to go through it, but they seemed quite positive, and very, very grown up."

To prepare for the test, the students worked on listening comprehension, as well as reading articles and responding in writing. However, Lamdon noted that these strategies are key to student success and are therefore an integral part of the curriculum. "That would be found in any classroom without the test, but we structured it more," she said.

The new 4th grade assessment has been the source of some controversy throughout the state.

For example, some educators see some difficulty with the scoring system designed for the examination. Teachers will spend today scoring tests from other districts in their region, which presented staffing problems for some schools.

In Farmingdale, administrators have prepared for the day of regional scoring by changing their staff conference day from March 17 to today, in order to allow for the closing of schools today. They sent notices about the change to parents and newspapers weeks in advance.

There were reports in other districts that students had seen some of the passages while preparing for the test, although Superintendent Dempsey said this was not the case in Farmingdale.

Administering the test to students came with a fee from the state, which Dempsey sees as an unfunded mandate. "I would say that there are costs attached, and we're always a little concerned when there are statewide costs imposed on a local district, and we put that in the category of an unfunded mandate," he said. "We're willing to comply with mandates; we would like to see the financial support come from the state to support those mandates."

Students across the state found themselves in a peculiar situation when they were asked to create a story associated with a given picture, because while practicing for the test, many of the students had already seen the picture in the context of another story.

Whereas with the old PEP tests, students were asked to place missing words into paragraphs, in the new assessment, students are asked to write about what they have read.

Another difference is that the PEP tests were not timed, while the new assessment was timed. During the three-day assessment, the 4th graders were given 45 minutes for the the first part of the test, and 60 minutes for each of the next two sessions. "While I believe the 60 minutes for the two sessions was okay, I think in the first session, 45 minutes was a little short. It will be interesting to compare, because we have their 3rd grade results, and now their 4th grade results, to look at them critically and see what we can learn from them," Lamdon commented.

She also believes that this first new state assessment serves as an indicator for ensuing ones. "I think if you look at them, you see the link between the 4th grade, the 8th grade, and then the new Regents."

The Farmingdale School District will use the results of the 4th grade Language Arts assessment in several in ways, according to Dempsey. First, individual student performance on the test will be used to determine if a student needs extra support. Secondly, group results will be used to compare the district's performance and curriculum to others. Also, the assessment will serve as a model for classroom assessments used by teachers.

There will be additional new assessments in May and June - Math for 4th and 8th grade, and Language Arts for 8th and 11th grade.