State Ed receives top grade
for correcting a mistake

Last week hundreds of thousands of students across New York State took the Math A exam, a test that is a required benchmark for graduation. Within moments from the time that the test papers were handed out, it was clear that something was seriously amiss. Students appeared baffled, upset and confused. Teachers were shocked and angry. Students and teachers identified certain items on the test as outside of the lines of the coursework they had been studying all year.

The results of the Math A regents exam could be summed up in a single word—disastrous. A disproportionate number of students had failed the exam and it looked as if some seniors might have missed out on their graduation.

Following the exam, parents, teachers, administrators and students raised their collective voices in protest and Commissioner Richard Mills and the state education department listened.

The commissioner’s office immediately requested item analysis data from the schools and promised to do the right thing. Within twenty-four hours they did just that.

The test was declared invalid.

Juniors and seniors will not have to take another test. Course grades for all students will be based on local coursework allowing seniors who might have not graduated because of this exam to be free of that concern. Since freshmen and sophomores have yet to complete the three-year requirement for math courses, they will still be required to pass a Math A regents. That makes sense.

Commissioner Mills and the State Education Department are to be complimented for their timely and sensible action. It is refreshing whenever a government agency listens to concerns expressed by the public and acts accordingly. In his statement to the public, Mills declared:

“Children are our first concern. We express that concern by providing the very best education we can. Fair exams are part of that education. This exam doesn’t seem fair. I think we made some mistakes with this exam and it’s up to us to identify and correct them. This situation is unacceptable and we are taking action now to protect the children. That done, we will turn immediately to the most rigorous, independent, public accounting of the test itself.”

Thank you Commissioner Mills on the part of the students, teachers, parents, administrators and the community. Your grade on this performance: A+.

Richard Ross, Youth Editor

… perhaps the DOT
can follow suit

The New York State Department of Transportation should find another method to take care of the weeds that grow along the guardrails of Route 97—New York State’s Upper Delaware Scenic Byway.

To dump gallons of herbicides along a protected highway, running the length of a protected river, is shortsighted at best. Narrowsburg’s posted Wellhead Protection Area seemed to be doused as well.

Residents, the National Park Service, the Upper Delaware Council, the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway Organization, the Town of Tusten and the Sullivan County Department of Public Works (which banned the county’s use of herbicides years ago) should all call for the immediate suspension of this environmentally flawed practice.

Laurie Stuart, Editor