This chapter reminded me a lot of
why I am a teacher! The story of Derek almost brought me to tears. Those types
of students need teachers to love them and care for them. I have worked in a
title 1 school for five years. I see many students that have similar stories to
Derek’s, and my heart just goes out to them. I use to teach in Texas and had to
give the TAKS test. This was a very stressful part of teaching. I remember in
the first month of school, they were already diagnosing children who would
potentially fail the TAKS test. Sometime this would happen before I would even
meet the children. I hated when teachers would come to me and tell me about my
“bad” future students!
I completely understand what the
author was talking with NCLB and testing. I understand we have to test our
students to see if they are making progress, but are we doing it the most
effective way? I struggle with this. I don’t believe it is right to teach to a
test, but when so much is riding on that one test one time a year it’s hard to
not teach with the test in mind. I remember specifically a student who was
struggling with math and reading, and I busted my butt to make sure he passed
his test. He had before and after tutoring that I personally did (for free). I
felt like I was giving him a disservice because we did a lot of test prep. Was
that what he needed for the real world? He did end up passing both of his tests
(math and reading). I think the federal and state government put too much on
this high-stake test. We are held at such a high standard to make sure these
students pass. At my school in Texas, our principal would post our student’s
benchmark test scores in the office throughout the year for the entire school
to see. Talk about pressure! I have seriously considered quitting teaching
because of this testing. I feel like I can’t teach to benefit my students!
In the next few years, our school
is planning on going away from the letter grades and going to standard grading.
I agree when the author said that parents do not understand letter grades, and
frankly, neither do students. I think the standard grading will a lot of work
but worth it. It will let students, parents, and other teachers know exactly
what that student does and does not know. Conferences will be a lot easier to
explain to parents where exactly their child is academically.
This
chapter was a real eye opener when it comes to NCLB and high-stake testing. I
really hope our state and federal government get their act together when
dealing with education. I think if the government worried about all of our
other gaps like the author says, we can change the education field. So many
students are up against so much in life that school is just not their top
priority. I hope to see a change for more twenty-first century teaching instead
of high-stake testing teaching.
Great thoughts, Beth! I really couldn't agree more with all of your points; it's very interesting hearing about your first-hand experience with standardized tests. I'm interested to know more about "standard grading" - what does that mean? I haven't heard other local teachers talk about it yet? Is this happening in 6-12 too? Those are the teachers I usually work with with our student teachers.
ReplyDeleteBasically our reports will be all of the standards for that particular grade level. Instead of letters A,B,C,D,F for assignments and test, teachers will be assessing for standards. I'm not sure on how they are going to grade if it is just a does not meet or meets grade. or if there are other components to it. I just know it will not be letter grades. This will be for all grade levels k-8th. I am not sure what happens when they get to BBCHS. I am assuming it would go through all the grades. There will be more training on it next year, and they want to implement it in 2015.
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