Jim Planck in The Daily Mail reports that New York schools are in for significant changes to the annual state assessment tests. There will more questions on both the English Language Arts (ELA) and the math tests and more time will be set aside for them. The tests will now be administered over a three-day period and the districts are now mandated to set aside nintey minutes for each session. The new tests also feature "field test" questions that don’t count, and are only there to help the state get a better feel for designing future tests. The ELA tests will also be scored differently. Writing mechanics such as spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage, will now count, though specific details of how much they will factor in to scores will be in a forthcoming document from the State's Education Dept. Read about new school assessment tests in The Daily Mail. The ELA tests will be given from April 17-19, and the math ones from April 25-27. The changes are bound to play into an ongoing debate about how much time students and schools devote to standardized assessment tests. Read the Gotham Schools blog on testing for more information on the issue.