Scores on school tests drop sharply

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Carol Burris, the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, who was named the state’s Principal of the Year this year, has been a consistent opponent of the state’s testing program. Burris recently wrote in her blog, “This drop [in scores] was predicted by Deputy [Education] Commissioner Ken Slentz in March, before any bubble was filled, and by Commissioner John King, who declared that scores would ‘likely drop by 30 points’ before the last test was sealed in its packet. If a teacher in my school told me that he designed a test that was so hard that the passing rate would drop by 30 points and the majority of his students would fail, I would walk him to the door.”

Local school officials have been advised by the state that parents will not receive individual students’ scores until mid-September at the earliest.

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