by Markella Giannakopoulos, staff reporter
New York State’s DOE has decided to provide schools with the ability to see the progress of its students through statewide assessments starting at the beginning and going periodically throughout the year. The performance assessment tests (PAs) are given to middle and high school, specific to each grade, for the middle school and subject for the high school.
“The Performance Assessment tests are a key part of the D.O.E. program through Advance Learning whose goal it is to unite curriculum with the Common Core Learning Standards. As a measurement of student learning the P.A.s seek to see growth and progress through a series of diagnostic assessments in addition to teachers summative and formative informal assessments,” assistant principal Mrs. Poulos said.
PAs are being administered to each class throughout the month of October ranging from English to the different Math subjects to the Science classes. Teachers and students have expressed various feelings about the PAs.
“It’s a good idea to see how each student grows through the year. It shows kids what they are expected to know. But, some people are better test takers than others. These tests aren’t suited to everyones needs,” math teacher Mr. Speizer said.
“It was a waste of time because we didn’t know what we were doing,” junior Xavier Angulo said. “I guessed on all the questions.”
“A lot of people didn’t try because they told us it has no effect on our grade,” Angulo said. The tests had no effect on the students grade, the P.As are merely supposed to track students progress from the beginning of the year to the end, to show the difference of what students knew in October to what they will now by the end of the year when they retake a different version of the PA tests.
