This post would be comical if it were satirical, but unfortunately it is factual and pathetic. Arthur Goldstein describes the tests that the Néw York State Education Department inflicts on his ELL students.
Read it and weep for the students and their teachers.
“And what a test it is, folks. Yesterday, a young man asked me why the essay specifically called for an introduction, body, and conclusion but only two paragraphs. This was the same young man who, the first day of the test, asked why the students had to stay until the bell rang if they had already finished their tests. Why do we have to sit here and do nothing? And why do they ask us for a basic structure that demands three paragraphs and then asks for two?”
“I’m not at all sure that particular student is in need of Common Core. He’s critical all by himself without it. Oddly, folks like Arne Duncan and John King get pretty churlish when people question the Core. They attack soccer moms and call teachers, parents and students “special interests.” Those who spend billions imposing their will on our children, of course, are philanthropists, heroes to be lauded on test passages.
“The second day, I stopped the CD because the listening activity was identical to that of the first day. It turned out that the geniuses at NYSED, or whoever they paid to design this thing, decided to repeat the same sample question three days in a row. I’m sure the students were as inspired as I was by that bold move, once I figured out it was not, in fact, yet another error. On part one of this review, a commenter offered:
“The Speaking Subtest was just the tip of the iceberg. This new CCLS-aligned NYSESLAT is the worst sort of rubbish: inappropriate, riddled with errors, and designed for failure. The CCLS cancer is spreading, my friends. Take heed.”
“Sounds ominous, but I’m not persuaded. I have no idea whatsoever what the NYSESLAT was designed for. Certainly it was an effective device in torturing beginning students. I watched a girl from El Salvador who’s been here maybe six weeks suffer through it for no good reason. She’s a rank beginner who will likely need to start from the beginning in September, and I don’t need a three day test to tell me that.
“But I have no idea what the test will say about her or anyone You see, after we grade the test at the school, we have to send it to Albany for the next part, The Rigging of the Scores. That’s when Albany decides which percentage of kids should be at which level, and sets the cut scores so whatever they predict comes true. After all, how can you be all-knowing unless you force your predictions on the entire populous? There are reputations to protect, and now that you’ve cut English learning in half, there’s gonna be a lot less of it anyway.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“after we grade the test at the school, we have to send it to Albany for the next part, The Rigging of the Scores. That’s when Albany decides which percentage of kids should be at which level, and sets the cut scores so whatever they predict comes true.”
We have the same level of stupidity here in Texas. The passing standard is never determined before the tests, only after.
Two year ago we administered a Chemistry End of Course Exam to students in Chemistry. The test was written by college professors. If I let you guess what the passing score was it would take at least 25 tries to guess. The eventual passing score was 27%..27% was the passing standard. How invalid was that test?
I can honestly say after giving the 5th grade ELA and Math in NY, my students could design a better assessment.
For that matter, 3 monkeys and a kangaroo could do better than anyone in NY State Ed. The level of incompetence is absurd.
I attended the training held by the publisher. They held trainings throughout the state of New York. Their training materials were straight from the field test. They were literally photocopies. The interesting thing about the field test was that the final test was designed for kindergarten but the field test was given to kindergarteners and first graders. The first and second grade span test was based off of a field test given to second graders and third graders. And so on so forth. The copies given to those taking the training throughout New York had all that information. Draw your own conclusions and one must wonder what else theses publishing companies do.
Reading this reminds me of something our superintendent said years ago:
When I see what is going on now I guess our critics are right
we did not educate very well
at least
some of the nonentities.
I had to inflict the NYSESLAT on students for many years. The beginners and K students are totally bewildered by being subjected to this. They don’t know what is going on, and the K students can barely find their place on the page. The teacher goes mad to ensure that children that speak no English are at least in the right spot. Some cry, try to sleep, or helplessly look at you like you have lost your mind. It wastes several instructional mornings, and doesn’t tell the teacher anything new. In an elementary school the teacher must give three levels of this test. The only good thing about it is that the students are measured against other ELLs, rather than native speakers, as in the ELA.
Thank you Arthur…for going above and beyond in looking our for the well being of our children!
“The Rigging of the Scores” is my new mantra. I would laugh if it wasn’t the truth.
Preach!
None of this testing makes any sense at all for my Vegas kids who are limited language.
We provide no support to them – but insist crazy weird test after crazy weird test that shows they are failing. Sad.
Arthur, this is my eighth year teaching ESL in NYC and while I’ve always thought the NYSESLAT has had its issues, this particular version of the test is the most disgusting heinous thing ever. I LOVED your student’s comment about the intro, body, and conclusion. They tell the kids to write two paragraphs but it doesn’t even matter if they don’t on the rubric, so umm, why put that in the directions? Thanks for pointing out the most incredibly frustrating thing about the Core. We’re supposed to teach “critical thinking skills” but when we use it to question the Core, somehow we’re “the problem.” What the heck was with that speaking test? It was basically an oral reading comprehension test. Why call it a speaking test then? I really don’t know how they are going to show that beginners and intermediate level students are making progress. Why on Earth did they get rid of all the social interaction components of the speaking exam? Every language acquisition researcher knows that that’s the first step, and an important one, in language development. According to this new NYSESLAT, I guess they’re just supposed to skip over that and cite evidence from a text?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Umm, what??????? The writing prompt for session 3 of the 7th-8th grade test was so poorly worded and contained an error in tense. This test looked remarkably like the regular ELA test given to my middle schoolers, so what was the point? It seems like they want to destroy ESL. Why did they do away with the grammar questions? Is grammar not that important anymore in the second language classroom? I mean really. Am I really supposed to have the kid analyze why certain words were chosen, when they don’t even have much of a vocabulary yet? I’m a firm believer in challenging my kids, but for the love of God, don’t skip over all the incremental steps that get them to greater fluency.
I couldn’t agree more with your analysis. Apparently, the structure of English is completely irrelevant to language learners in NYSED World. As for the oral comprehension, it may have been even worse, depending on how NYSED rigs the scores. It may have been a test of how well you could regurgitate the passage in front of your face.
And don’t envy your supervisors. They will have to program all the kids for next year based on guesswork, and then reprogram all of them sometime next year when the geniuses at NYSED see fit to rig the scores on the papers you corrected this month.
If it took me months to score a test, I’d deserve every bit of the nonsense the press throws at all of us. As it is, the papers praise NYSED in editorials for having the courage to call most of our kids failures. Funny world we live in.