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Voices of Testing Season
Testing season is in full swing these days. Here are some snippets of conversations heard during this time of the year. Think of what we could be hearing from students instead such as, "This is such a fun project," or "I love this science experiment," "enjoy your book!" or "the students and I are having an amazing time learning about math this week!"
Instead, we get this.....
"These kids need testing strategies to succeed. They have no clue!"
"But we were told to teach Common Core State Standards but OAKS is based on the old standards!"
"We have to retest all of those who didn't pass? Is this under the new formula for growth or for meeting benchmark scores or not?"
"But I still have two months left to teach curriculum! They won't know enough of the material to be tested on it!"
"We're going to interrupt our traditional and high-interest hands-on learning project to have those who didn't meet on the state test, take the test again?! They will get behind and be left out!"
"I'm not surprised by the test results of some students; I could have told you they weren't being successful based on my assessments in class. Why waste time with a high-stakes test?"
"Sorry you didn't meet benchmark, but you grew so much! You did great, don't feel bummed! You should be proud of your efforts."
"I feel like such a failure."
"Why are the assessments you as a professional teacher not good enough when it comes evaluating the success of your students?"
"State testing started today. Ugh."
"Those on the outside look at these test results and see failure."
"I am not taking time out of teaching to teach test prep."
"Have you looked at your data strands?"
Instead, we get this.....
"These kids need testing strategies to succeed. They have no clue!"
"But we were told to teach Common Core State Standards but OAKS is based on the old standards!"
"We have to retest all of those who didn't pass? Is this under the new formula for growth or for meeting benchmark scores or not?"
"But I still have two months left to teach curriculum! They won't know enough of the material to be tested on it!"
"We're going to interrupt our traditional and high-interest hands-on learning project to have those who didn't meet on the state test, take the test again?! They will get behind and be left out!"
"I'm not surprised by the test results of some students; I could have told you they weren't being successful based on my assessments in class. Why waste time with a high-stakes test?"
"Sorry you didn't meet benchmark, but you grew so much! You did great, don't feel bummed! You should be proud of your efforts."
"I feel like such a failure."
"Why are the assessments you as a professional teacher not good enough when it comes evaluating the success of your students?"
"State testing started today. Ugh."
"Those on the outside look at these test results and see failure."
"I am not taking time out of teaching to teach test prep."
"Have you looked at your data strands?"
