Annie:

Congratulations on your success, although I'm sensing a little ambivalence toward the whole regents exam concept :>)

Seriously, though, are you saying you have a 1/2 year to prep them for the exam, or 1.5 years? It's a little unclear from your post. You have them in Grade 9 and again in Grade 10. They take the exam in January of their 10th grade year? I'm assuming 9th grade is something other than regents prep, so what do you do with them in grade 9?

I have a pretty good idea why the curriculum seems so rigorous, at least on paper. The state appears to be conflicted between wanting students to actually understand concepts and engage in the scientific enterprise rather than just memorize facts, and wanting them to know a ridiculous breadth of knowledge at the same time. I'm pretty certain that a lot of the resistance comes from science teachers who think having fewer topics to cover (in more depth) is simply "watering down" the curriculum. You can see this in the middle school curriculum as well, where at one point state ed reps said pretty explicitly that this was indeed the case, with teachers all over the state complaining when their pet topics were taken out or de-emphasized. For whatever reason, State Ed is pretty sensitive to criticism, and the more vocal groups tend to be the traditionalist stalwarts.
Michael Gatton | Email | Homepage | 02.05.05 - 10:33 pm | #