State Testing

We've been having state testing at our schools this week--beginning last Wednesday. Everyone is under stress when these things roll around. I used to test my three high school students each year. I'd make sure I had orange juice, fruit, toaster pastries and snacks.

This year, since I'm on an elementary campus, I volunteered to test one of the little boys in 4th grade. Fortunately, I had orange juice in a cooler. This child had the worse cold! I know that was affecting some of his answers. Yesterday he did not come to school. I was so concerned for him. There should be a space for teachers to note: "This child was ill on the day of this testing." or something like that.

It's a shame to stress these babies out with these tests. If the don't pass the test in grade four, they don't go to fifth grade or middle school. If they don't pass the eighth grade version, they don't go to high school. In high school they start taking them in tenth grade and they have until twelfth to complete them or they cannot graduate--which is what happened to two of my former students. The math section threw them for a loop! True, some kids fool around, like those two did, but others are just not test wise and have test stress even though you can see how well they do in class. So I have mixed feeling about such testing. Besides that, the information on them is so very cumulative. It may be more appropriate to have one test after a class rather than one test after years of cumulative information.

No one asks teachers but we have always said it makes more sense to do as we used to: have a test after a course. True competency education is about taking a pretest and a post test. A pretest determines what needs to be taught or learned in a class. Say, for instance, if you're really good in algebra and you are required to take an algebra 1 course. You would be administered a test with all you need to know in Algebra 1. If you pass the test, you receive credit for Algebra 1 and you enroll in a class that you need other than Algebra 1. On the other hand, if you do not pass the pretest, then the instructor will have some idea what he/she needs to teach and you will know what you need to learn to pass the post test. THAT is true competency education--but no one asks us teachers; they only complain about us.

Last year, immediately after state testing, the high school kids who were in Algebra 1, had to take a field test on line for--guess what---Algebra 1. This is, supposedly, a precursor for administering pretests and post tests on a state basis, rather than a cumulative, multi-content area state standardized test on paper. Hmmm. Where have we heard that idea before? I'll bet some bureaucrat is taking credit for that idea.

My husband has been taking his grandson to Saturday classes for the state standardized test. he says they were in the Kenner section of the Picayune yesterday. I have yet to look for it on line since my power was off for a few hours last night after a thunder storm. Of course he's more concerned at the moment for the DirecTV dish that was blown off the side of the house.