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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Home Field Advantage | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Home Field Advantage | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:

Home Field Advantage

In New York State, the high school standardized tests are called ‘The Regents’ exams.  Unlike the state tests for grades 3 through 8, which are graded externally, the Regents have always been scored by the teachers in the school.  After they are graded, the tests would then sent off to Albany where they could be audited if there is suspicion that they have been graded improperly.
At my school we would take all the tests and split up the task among the math teachers, being careful that no teacher grades his or her own class.  The scoring rubric is often very vague and we would have a lot of heated arguments about how many points of partial credit to give for this or that, as we tried to fairly interpret the guidelines.
This year we learned that instead of grading our students in our school, the math teachers would all go to another site where we would the Regents for many schools would be sent and work together with teachers from other schools to grade the Regents centrally.
One reason for this new policy is explained by a recent New York Post article entitled “High schools that didn’t