The New York State Department of Education has dropped its plan to impose tougher testing requirements on 7th graders.
State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia sent a letter to schools last week, saying the new “aspirational scores” plan will not be required for students who would be entering 9th grade in the 2018-2019 school year. Elia says the state is still overhauling its standardized testing standards so it will stick with the current rules for ELA and Math testing.
This is a further step back from the controversial Common Core initiative which imposed tougher testing standards on students and made teacher evaluations dependent on the results. This year’s 7th graders were supposed to be the first group required to meet the tougher standards when they graduated from high school in 2022.