The New York City Department of Education administered yesterday, for the first time, a test to assess the reading skills of third graders. The important test will determine just how many of the 80,000 children in public school third grade classes will be promoted next year to the fourth grade.

Hamodia contacted local yeshivos to inquire if the City Board of Education has requested that the same test be administered to third grade yeshiva boys and girls. While it is standard for yeshivos to be asked to give their students standardized tests for reading, math and science (in fourth and eight grade), principals at the yeshiva elementary schools told Hamodia that they have never been asked by the city to administer local Board of Education standardized tests.

Many of the yeshiva principals were not aware of the tests until they heard reports or were made aware of news articles on the new exam. Mrs. Mindy Salzberg, head of the Yeshiva of Brooklyn Girls Elementary School’s English department (grades 1 to 4) told Hamodia that she might have considered giving the test, if she had had a chance to examine it.

“I would have administered it if I had thought that the examination was on the level of my students, and that it would not have exerted any undue pressure on them. We routinely administer fourth-grade and eighth-grade state English-language arts tests, fifth-grade science exams, and fourth- and eighth-grade math tests.”

When asked how the Yeshiva of Brooklyn utilizes the exams, Mrs. Salzberg said that the eighth-grade exams are hardly beneficial, since by the time the results are returned to the yeshiva the following year, all of the students are in high school, and there is nothing that the previous yeshiva can do to assist them.

However, the fourth-grade exams help the school administrators identify those students who are in need of additional help. Mrs. Salzberg will give those girls who did poorly on their English tests an assignment to read six books and write three book reports. The work is intended to improve their reading skills, yet not detract from their summer vacation.

The yeshiva makes an effort to provide girls who don’t score well on the fourth-grade math tests with extra tutoring assistance in the fifth grade. The school administers the fourth-grade science and fifth-grade social studies state exams. It has, however, not administered the eighth-grade science tests because some of the material is offensive to the hashkafa [Jewish philosophy] of the school.