STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A week after a perplexing question about a pineapple popped up on state English Languages Arts exams, state education officials have notified principals about two mistakes on state math exams to be administered today.
The mistakes are both typos - something a State Education Department spokesman said happens when over 5 million tests are administered in the state for over 30 different exams. They appear on tests that help determine if students will continue on to the next grade, and are used to judge whether schools are failing.
The tests are created by Pearson Inc., to which the Education Department awarded a $32 million, five-year contract last year. These are the first tests Pearson has produced for the state.
"It's not insurmountable. Is it a screw-up? You bet," said UFT District 31 Representative Sean Rotkowitz of the errors. "For $32 million you'd think their quality control should have been better."
On grade 4 math tests, question 58 in book two has two correct answers, according to the notice given to schools across the state.
"If during this test any student asks about Question 58, proctors may advise the student that there are two correct answers to this question," the notice reads.
When the test is scored, students who chose either of the correct answers will be given credit.
Rotkowitz said he thought the proctors ought to be able to announce the discrepancy to the whole class at the start of the exam, rather than waiting for a student to ask. If no student asked about the question, some might struggle with the question for a while if they were confused about which answer was correct.
"That does have the potential to throw some kids off," Rotkowitz said.
The problem on an eighth grade math exam is just the opposite - due to a typo there is no correct answer to multiple choice Question 13 on one form of the test, according to the notice from the state.
"Proctors may tell students before the test begins that there is no correct answer for this question and students should mark any answer to this question on their answer sheets," the notice reads.
That question won't count - and it wouldn't have counted even if it didn't have the typo. Question 13 is an "embedded field test question," which helps the Education Department gather information about what types of questions to ask on future exams, but doesn't count to the current one.
Rotkowitz said for $32 million, he didn't think Pearson should be making any mistakes.
"I think that the public is going to have a lot of questions and concerns, certainly parents of school children," Rotkowitz said.
He said quality control regarding typos should have been better, to say nothing of the quality control involved in dealing with "the pineapple questions."
On the English exams given last week, a test section asking students about a story called "The Hare and the Pineapple" drew wide criticism across the Web and in the media for having two questions with especially ambiguous answers.
The passage was about a pineapple challenging a hare to a race. Other animals in the forest think the pineapple must have a trick up its sleeve. They decide to cheer for the pineapple. When the race starts, the pineapple doesn't move. The hare wins, and the animals eat the pineapple. The moral? "Pineapples don't have sleeves."
While the entire story was odd, critics argued answers to questions asking which animal was wisest, and why the animals ate the pineapple, could not be found in the text.
Commissioner John King said the question made more sense in the context of the full passage rather than what was originally released in the media. But still, "due to the ambiguous nature of the test questions the Department has decided it will not be counted against students in their scores," he said in a statement.
King also noted the test section did not incorporate the Common Core - which asks students to read more nonfiction - and next year, the test will be fully aligned with the new curriculum. The passage was reviewed by a committee comprised of teachers from across the state, King said, but was not crafted for New York.