Any student at Central knows testing days aren’t optional, no matter how much we’d want them to be. On days like these, skipping school is pointless because, in the end, you’ll just get pulled for make-up testing and wind up missing class, which becomes a headache of its own. Yet on October 28th and 29th, the NJGPA “Field Test” failure really questioned that mandatory notion.
Unless you read the email line by line, you probably had no clue what exactly they meant by “field test.” Let me tell you: the New Jersey Department of Education required some NJ high schools to administer a test run of the new adaptive state assessments. These tests supposedly adjust the difficulty of each question based on previous answers to determine a student’s individual level. The first day consisted of two 60-minute testing units, one English and one math. The second day was for grades 9 through 11 and was entirely English-based. Freshmen and sophomores had to take the NJSLA version, while Juniors took the NJGPA version along with seniors who took Algebra 2 or lower last year. Anyone who didn’t fit those categories was exempt. As a result, a majority of seniors were able to skip the second day entirely. As a junior required to show up for both testing days, I can confidently say the rest of the school should have followed suit.
Even before the actual testing days, I dreaded it more than the average student. This started upon seeing that my testing proctor was a teacher I had from freshman year. I spent all year waiting for the day that I would never have to sit in that classroom again. And now, I had to sit in it for 3 hours, taking a test that won’t affect me in any way? Yeah, I’ll pass. One of my friends felt the same way; I watched her mood completely drop when she found out. I only attended the first testing day, and that alone was enough to convince me I didn’t need a repeat. On the morning of the 28th, I cracked open my Celsius right before I heard, “No drinks other than water and no food are allowed during the test.” This immediately set me off because I didn’t see the big deal if this testing wasn’t even the real-deal. I ignored it and tucked my drink under my seat. About 10 minutes later, my teacher walked by, passing out papers, and accidentally knocked it over, spilling it everywhere – that was already too much for 8 AM.
After everyone got settled, we began the English portion. The questions weren’t difficult, but they did require a ton of reading. I got through them pretty quickly and then saw a message appear on my screen: “Your test has been submitted. This test will not be scored.” Seeing that confirmed my thinking: the test was completely unnecessary. To be honest, was there even a point in expelling my energy finding the right answers? Some people might argue “it’s good practice,” but haven’t we been doing these state tests enough times to be fine for the real thing?
If the only issue was that it wouldn’t be scored, things would have gone much more smoothly. Yet, on the first day when the time rolled around for students to take the math portion, a glitch occurred, and the system didn’t work the way it was supposed to. As a result, the math portion of the test was canceled altogether. Even some who had already started this section were forced out and had their tests deleted.
Yes, I understand this proves why practice runs exist.
However, the chaotic change of schedule was unnecessary and ruined mine and most others’ days. All the seniors and exempt students were expected to come in at 10:40 am, after testing. However, due to this unprecedented change, anyone who arrived at the planned time was actually late to their real classes. Not to mention, the first block teachers’ lesson plans were completely ruined because it was unfair to teach anything with half the class missing. As I said earlier, I stayed home the second day, so when I arrived late on the 29th, my teacher filled me in on the confusion. I was instantly worried that I had missed something in class, and now had an actual tardy on top of that. To avoid this, we could have stayed in our homerooms for a much-needed study hall until the scheduled testing end time.
Before deciding to skip day two, I asked my counselor what would happen if I did skip. She wasn’t entirely sure and told me, “You’ll probably be pulled for makeups”. It’s been about a month, and I haven’t heard anything about needing to do one. Not only does that show the test wasn’t actually mandatory, but it’s also unfair to the students who did show up. I know I’m clearly biased because of my own experience, but anytime I talked to friends about it, they completely agreed with me. Most of them told me they wished they had skipped too, as they had zero motivation to do work in their classes afterward. Some even skipped the whole day because they figured they wouldn’t miss much in their hour-long classes anyway.
When spring rolls around, I’m sure there will be more complications with the real test that will frustrate both teachers and students at Central. But until then, I hope we don’t have to try this again. I do know that everyone has their own perspective, so I genuinely want to know: How did you feel about the NJGPA field test? Whether you thought it was pointless and frustrating or necessary and important, every opinion is valid.
