Mineola Schools Prepare for New State Exams

Years from now, when you mention the Regents exam to students in New York State, you may be greeted with looks of puzzlement and questions asking just what it was.

Mineola Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler dropped the hint at the November 3 meeting of the when he gave an update about the various new state initiatives involving the common core curriculum.

“It’s not decided,” he said cautioning parents. “There will be Regents until they tell us other wise, but as of right now whatever they do they’re going to have to phase it out.”

As part of the “Race to the Top” initiative, New York, Florida and Delaware were charged with developing for the new common core curriculum, which 42 states have agreed to adopt, in essence creating a national test since those states were the recipients of the Federal funding.

The new exam is known as the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessment, which has 25 states forming a consortium to administrate.

“If you follow the logic here and the PARCC assessment is used by 25 states and New York is the state that won all the money in Race to the Top, how can New York have a different assessment than all the other states they’re collaborating with?” Dr. Nagler said, pointing out one of the “very interesting questions” about the state of the Regents.

Students in New York State could still take the Regents exam, but “I don’t see how it would be an exit exam,” as working toward graduation, the superintendent said. The exam could also be eliminated since additional exams require more funds to administer and the state is currently in its own fiscal crisis.

The 2011-12 school year has been designated as a year to “try” different components of the new core curriculum with the core curriculum beginning in 2012-13 and the PARCC set to be administered by the 2014-15 school year.

“The assessment that’s coming is very different than anything we’ve seen,” Dr. Nagler said.

The exam is similar to the international PISA exam, in that it asks students to solve knowledge-based problems. Dr. Nagler believed that the current students will have to face different requirements for graduation than the ones in now.

“If we’re able to get that going I thing we’ll be well prepared for a transition between the Regents and the PARCC assessment,” he said. “The thing that we’re doing at the middle school, especially with and the lend itself to that kind of work.” Mineola has put in place some project-based learning initiatives in high school with teachers asked to submit lesson plans.

The exam would taken on a computer and be a simulation that walks students through a real-life problem “where they have to use the content they use to solve the problem,” said the superintendent, adding that he received a memo on November 1 about the specifications of the computers needed to administer the exam. While the exam is supposed to be given on same day in all 25 states, there are issues revolving around computer access, especially in New York City.

“This is a reality coming,” the superintendent said. “Our task is to have the entire common core in place by next year.”