Like most school districts throughout the state, the Garden City School District has joined with others in expressing their concerns about the amount of instructional time that will be lost this spring because of the state-mandated eighth grade assessments. Superintendent of the Garden City School District Dr. Stephen Leitman addressed these concerns at a recent board of education meeting, when he spoke about what superintendents are doing to try to fight the testing schedule which will have students beginning testing in early May and continuing throughout June.

Leitman explained that he recently attended a superintendents' conference in Albany where superintendents from throughout the state discussed how this testing schedule will impact eighth graders. "Our claim is when do we teach the students if you are going to be testing them during the months of May and June," said Leitman. "On top of that there is some preparation that goes on during the month of April so the state is really sanctioning almost 8-10 weeks that we eliminate instruction and just assess our students."

Leitman noted that the deputy commissioner of education informed them, on a positive note, that a memorandum would be coming out announcing that one of the tests, the technology assessment, would become an optional exam. In addition, according to the deputy commissioner, the social studies and science results will not be disseminated throughout the state. Leitman questioned why the state is requiring the exam if they do not plan to share the results.

Following Leitman's statements, a father, who has a daughter in the eighth grade this year said that he was pleased that the superintendents are recognizing these problems, but said that he wished to address a specific concern with regard to the eighth grade assessments. He commented on the fact that many eighth grade students, including his daughter, are in accelerated classes, such as earth science, a Regents course normally taken in ninth grade. The father noted that these students are taking earth science rather than the life science course which is the typical eighth grade curriculum, yet these students will be assessed by the state on curriculum from fifth through eighth grade, including life science. Just in Garden City, according to this parent, this affects over 100 eighth graders. He said it makes no sense for these accelerated students to be required to take the state assessment. He further noted that this science assessment will take five instructional periods and then the state will require teachers to leave their classes with a substitute while they then grade the exams. "At the same time, in the middle of June these same eighth graders will have to take the Earth Science Regents," he stated. "When they are most gearing up to take the Earth Science Regents, they'll miss anywhere from five to eight instructional periods being given an assessment which is useless to them anyway and it will really be damaging to them in terms of the Earth Science Regents because they will be competing against ninth graders who don't have the same problems and who don't have to take this assessment." He said that he and his wife plan to write to the commissioner of education and to their local representatives to make their feelings known about the problems associated with this assessment and he encouraged other parents to do the same.

Leitman explained that he had just recently presented the board of education with a document prepared by and supported by the Nassau County, Southern Westchester County, and Suffolk County Superintendents' Associations which they plan to send to the State Education Department. This document, which Leitman said they would like to have the support of all boards of education on, registers their concerns and offers proposals for solutions to the problems they have found with the assessments. One factor of this document, said Leitman, is the request that elementary and middle school students not be given more than two major exams in any given year. Leitman continued on to say that the document also addresses the fact that students who are taking accelerated math and science would be required to take these assessments and the Regents in those subjects just a short time apart from each other. "Since the new eighth grade state tests in both math and science are designed to determine whether students are adequately prepared for Regents exams, it simply makes no sense to require these students to take these preparatory tests just a few weeks before they take the Regents exam," Leitman said. He said that when that question was posed to the commissioner, he said that the data was needed to give further information about how the state is doing educationally, but Leitman noted that the eighth graders' results on the Regents exam should give them that needed information.

"The instructional time lost is unconscionable," concluded Leitman.