Incompetence At NYSED Causes Delays in Parent Notification Over Test Scores

It's all about the test scores for kids, teachers and schools these days.

The Board of Regents and the NYS Education Department have gone full speed ahead with their vaunted new Common Core tests and teacher evaluation systems based upon test scores.

Test scores plummeted across ther state as the NYSED instituted a new set of Common Core tests and many parents want to know how their children did on these tests to see whether their children need extra tutoring help.

But Newsday reports the geniuses at NYSED can't seem to get the test score results printed up and sent to parents in a timely fashion:

Thousands of Long Island parents have spent weeks waiting for notices of how their children scored on the state's challenging new tests, largely because of what education officials describe as glitches in Albany's computerized reporting system.

Frustrated parents say the delays in printing and mailing the state's score reports have made it difficult for them to make timely judgments on whether children need tutoring or other special help.
"It's mind-boggling to me that we don't have our scores yet," said Nicole Marino, the mother of a fifth-grader in the Half Hollow Hills district.

Regional and local school officials said last week that many families will not get scores in the mail until the coming week or later -- more than a month after the state's predicted delivery date. Score reports in years past often have been provided during the first week of school or soon after.

The state's computer software has not been the only cause of the holdup. School officials at regional and local levels say parent notifications were further slowed by the need to use the same test data in evaluating teachers' job performance.

...

The Education Department released data Aug. 7 showing that about 126,000 students in grades 3-8 throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties -- more than 60 percent of the total -- scored below proficiency on the tests, a failure rate nearly double that of the previous year.

The state clearly was not ready to institute their reform measures, the new tests, or the new evaluations systems and those facts are becoming increasingly clear with the problems arising around the test scores.

It shouldn't take too much effort to send notifications out to parents about the scores, but the incompetents at NYSED can't seem to figure out how do to that in a timely manner.

Not that it matters anyway, since no matter how the kids scores on the tests, they won't be eligible for AIS tutoring this year unless they were already eligible for it in 2012-2013.

NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch couldn't wait to institute these new tests and were salivating at the plummeting scores which they breathlessly delivered to the media with warnings about how these falling scores were proof positive that disruptive reform was needed in the state.

But now they can't even deliver the scores to parents and they refuse to provide the extra tutoring help students need to improve on these tests this coming year.

The arrogance and incompetence that emanates from Albany over education matters is truly awe-inspiring.

They have been getting away with this stuff for a while now, but we'll see how much longer this continues.

They were mostly aiming at teachers these past few years, but now they're pissing off parents too.