New York students are heading toward the testing cliff.
Kids in grades 3 to 8 will face much tougher questions on state math and English exams in April and May — and education officials expect scores to nose-dive.
“People are bracing for a major drop,” one official told The Post.
The tests will include complex math problems and reading passages — a third-grade sample features Tolstoy — to gauge whether students meet new national standards called Common Core.
SEE SAMPLE TEST QUESTIONS
New York agreed to adopt the higher standards several years ago when it won a $700 million grant in the federal Race to the Top contest.
Last month, Kentucky, the first of 46 states to test students on the standards, reported the number of elementary- and middle-school students rated “proficient” or higher fell at least 30 percent.
New York education officials fear similar, if not worse, results.
“Whenever you raise standards and change the tests, scores go down. We’re trying to be upfront about it,” said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, which was briefed on the tests last week.
Board member Betty Rosa, a former Bronx superintendent, worries the tough tests will devastate poor and immigrant students learning English.
Member Kathleen Cashin, a former Brooklyn superintendent, called it “too much, too soon.”
Teachers, whose performance evaluations will be based 20 percent on how their students do, have not had enough training to teach the curriculum, she said.
One sample question asks third-graders to read a translated short story, “The Gray Hare,” by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The fable includes the words “threshing floor,” “caftans” and “hoarfrost.”
“It’s absurd vocabulary for that age level and likely to throw even the best reader off,” said Jeff Nichols, a Manhattan father of a 9-year-old boy.
“Are we trying to make children feel inadequate?”
A sample eighth-grade reading test asks 13-year-olds to read a passage from the novel “Little Women.”
One question cites this sentence: “No persuasions or enticements could overcome her fear, till, the fact coming to Mr. Laurence’s ear in some mysterious way, he set about mending matters.”
It asks, “What effect does this sentence provide the reader as the story develops?”
Math items are also more mind-bending. The old third-grade tests required simple multiplication and division. The new tests ask students to fill in and reverse equations, identify fractions and calculate their equivalents, among other tasks.
The eighth-grade tests cover algebra and geometry with concepts such as negative exponents and scientific notation that retired Manhattan math teacher Steve Koss says are not usually taught until ninth, 10th and 11th grades.
“For lower-level and even average students, the test will be a major struggle,” Koss said.
CUNY education professor David Bloomfield said education leaders can blame only themselves.
“They are responsible for the lower standards that got us to this spot,” he said.
susan.edelman@nypost.com
