This page is my space to get down my thoughts and feelings about what is most important to me - family, hopes and dreams - sometimes it is a place to allow myself to be sad or angry, but I am not sure I have ever used this page to ask my friends to take political action.
This rant is primarily directed at Oklahoma, but other states have adopted similar measures, so don't discount this if you live afar.
Last week the official A-F ratings went out for schools. We knew they were coming, we had the scores, but finally the public could see the scores too. Elgin High got an A, as did the English Delartment itself (thanks to those fabulous ladies I work with). So I have nothing to complain about, right? Wrong. From the first day our score was given, it changed 5 times, bouncing from a mid A to low and gradually back to mid. Other schools had more changes. These scores were based on some real data and a lot of arbitrary data.
I say arbitrary because test scores are a fickle thing, especially when cut scores are manipulated unfairly. We don't know what the required score will be to pass until after the tests have been graded. Never mind that biology teachers recommended one score. The state went with a higher one. Test scores are fickle because they give you a snap shot of what a kid did on a computerized test after she had been testing for the better part of two weeks, after her computer had locked up and she sat there staring at it for an hour, after who knows what went on in her home that morning, after she worked until midnight at McDonalds to bring in the only money in her house, after she took care of a baby at 2 AM, after a friend died in a car wreck, after . . . , after . . . , after . Every one of those afters were actually true for students I administered a test to last spring. They are real and I am guessing that much worse real things happen in our students' lives every day.
There are a lot of things that happen in students' lives that cause them not to shine their brightest, no matter how much we teach, love, motivate, cajole, discipline. We have them part of the day and then someone else is supposed to be in charge. Supposed is the operative word here. Lots of kids live in homes where no is willing or able to be in charge.
So this A - F rating is based on a lot of things ranging from what courses we offer to our test scores. We bear a huge amount of responsibility, but we can not be entirely responsible when it comes to factors like attendance and scores. Top this off with the idea that now these scores will affect whether I receive all of my salary. I had to write a plan that stated what my goals were for my test scores. If the kids don't meet it, then I don't get paid as much. This is a pilot year thank goodness.
Sometimes kids shouldn't be responsible either. In the third grade, the new law is that students must pass a state test to get to go on to 4th grade. One test. No make up. No do over. How many 3rd grades are ready to understand the consequences of failing one test affecting their entire next year? They are little kids. They get upset and distracted by silly things like whether they got to sit in the blue chair or they had to sit in the ugly brown chair, like the kids who are already at recess, like they forgot their glasses at home. Last year Bell bombed a spelling test and said she didn't feel good. I made her stay at school because she wasn't running a fever, but she showed me. By bedtime she was at 103. You think she felt good? No, probably not, and she probably didn't do well partly because of that. It was only a spelling test, but what if it had been that 3rd grade test?
Do not get me wrong. Kids and schools and parents should be held accountable. Someone she should make sure we are working every single day in my room and not just watching movies. Someone should make sure we are discussing and doing leveled questions and analyzing and connecting, not just doing fill in the blank worksheets. Tests are important and they do have a place. However, when these scores start mattering so much that my eye twitches for the last 3 months of school or third grader who has made good grades all year but flopped on a test doesn't get to go on, this is a problem. When kids dread going to school and they are stressed out over grades and scores even though they are doing their best, this is a problem. When the kid who has made leaps and bounds of progress but has a learning disability won't get a diploma because he didn't make the cut score, this is a problem.
And why am I ranting at you? Because our government is largely responsible and we elected that government. Janet Baressi is unwilling to budge on these issues and just spends more money to develop more tests. Governor Fallin thinks schools and teachers should quit complaining or we should be penalized for our voice. Election year is right around the corner, but right now you can demand change by letting your voice be heard publicly and in letters to your senators and representatives. Even if you are a homeschool family, this will eventually affect you when this years students become next years employees and tax payers. It is your tax dollars that get spent in schools.
We should have high standards, but we should have reason and good judgment too.
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