Dear Island Trees School Community,
At this point, our elementary and middle school students have completed their state assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics.
The new exams have received a lot of scrutiny from the media as well as the public. There were a number of errors on both the ELA and Math exams, but clearly the eighth-grade “Pineapple” passage received the most attention. I’m sure the State Education Department and their testing organization, Pearson, will learn a lesson from this year and minimize the number of errors in the future.
Prior to the administration of these exams, school districts were told that New York State would focus their attention on more non-fiction works with the new their new Core Curriculum initiative.
In the past, the state has made many changes with their testing program and the direction to schools has not been 100 percent accurate. Now that the exams have been completed, we can confirm that the state used more non-fiction material in their reading passages.
In response, our schools will continue to add more non-fiction material to our English Language Arts curriculum.
We suggest that parents encourage their children to pick out non-fiction books during their weekly trips to the library. For emerging readers, parents may want to add a few non-fiction selections to their bedtime reading.
Please note our high school students will begin their Regents examinations in June. We have extra study sessions running at the high school to prepare for these exams. If you have any questions about these support classes, please contact the high school at 520-2136.
