Harlem Success Academy Prepares for Tests at Queens Farm Museum - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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New York State’s English and math exams include several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park
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Educators have long known that prior knowledge of a subject can significantly improve a child’s performance on tests.
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I think this factor of prior knowledge of a subject matter is one of the most difficult things to contend with in the debate about standardized tests. If students walk in to a learning experience with this lack of prior knowledge it becomes very difficult for them to ever catch up to the test's expectations.
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The New York State Education Department runs statistical analyses of its tests to look for gender, racial or socioeconomic bias, but it does not compare the performance of rural and urban students, partly because it is hard to isolate whether a disparity is the result of a lack of familiarity with an environment or is caused by other factors like socioeconomic status or quality of classroom instruction.
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