How Chancellor Klein misuses these tests
These tests are NOT all-purpose diagnostic tools, we've been told. They are intended to help schools evaluate student performance – and system-wide performance – in meeting curricular standards. What they are not designed to do is to finely discriminate among student performance levels across the whole spectrum of performance.
But under Chancellor Joel Klein, the NYC schools use these tests for a whole range of purposes beyond those apparently intended by the state, including:
- deciding which individuals will be allowed to apply to selective schools and programs within the schools
- evaluating teachers and principals
- generating data for public evaluation of individual schools
The state official we spoke to expressed surprise that New York City used these tests to determine middle-school admissions.