Friday, May 6, 2016

Who’s Got the Most At Stake


courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

As I mentioned in an earlier post (Too Little, Too Late), in the state where I teach, students are no longer accountable for the scores they make on the End-of-Grade tests. If this seems absurd, every teacher I know agrees with you. In the 14 years since I started teaching, there has been a 180 degree turn regarding the End-of-Grade Tests.

When I started teaching, a student had to pass both the Reading and Math tests to be promoted. If they passed one but not the other, and their grades on their report cards were passing grades, they might be transferred to the next highest grade, but not promoted. This is the academic equivalent of receiving a general discharge instead of an honorable one.

Now, the End-of-Grade Test results are used only in the teachers’ and Principal’s evaluations. The students have no stake in doing well, and are not accountable even if they utterly fail, and they know this. Such a situation puts the students in a position to potentially ruin a teacher they dislike.

The school district administration, and indeed, the state school board, is in denial about this. Folks from those two august bodies constantly assure us that students will always try to do their very best on the End-of-Grade Tests and that the students have no idea their scores on the tests are not being used in retention/promotion decisions. When we inform them how students have told us to our faces that they know the End-of-Grade test doesn’t really count for them, the people at the higher level, shake their heads, sigh, and ignore us.

Not to blow my own horn, but as a normally well liked teacher, my students do usually try to do well on the test because they know it will make me look good. In fact, some of the students who I taught last year and I am teaching again this year since I moved up a grade with them, think I got moved up with them because they scored so well on their End-of-Grade tests.

I also know, though, from the same students’ own admission, that they deliberately did poorly on the Math End-of-Grade test because they did not like the Math teacher they had last year and they wanted to make her look bad. When I reported this to administration I was told not to take the students’ comments seriously as they, the administrators, were certain no student would ever really do such a thing.

This year I am not teaching an End-of-Grade tested subject, though the students will take a district Final Exam in Science. I’ve told them not to sweat about the Science Exam as it counted a whole lot more for me than for them, and I only ask that they do their best on it. When it comes to their Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests, it will be informative to see how their scores come out, and if they reflect how they feel about their Reading and Math teachers. I guess we’ll know in about 8 weeks.

Until then,

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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