Are You Effing Kidding Me?

They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. When dealing with a school, I'd say the equivalent saying is: "A school is only as strong as its main office." Really, if the main office can't get it together, then the school is screwed. We're screwed. The office is definitely our weakest link.

Today I gave a math test. I mistakenly only ordered 19 copies of the math test instead of 20. While I only have 19 students (a blessing), I used one of them to make the test key, so I was short 1 test. Totally my fault. I sent a student down to the office to ask them to make one simple copy of the test. The test was 2 pieces of paper, with the first page being back to back, so I needed a total of three copies. I sent a reliable kid with the test and a very nice note explaining my request. FIFTEEN minutes later, the kid comes back up with the original test and my copy. However, the copy is only 2 pages: the first page and the last page. When I asked him where the middle page was, he said that the secretary told him to tell me that she couldn't copy the second page because it was on the back of the first page. I said nothing. What I wanted to say was "Are you f*cking kidding me?"

So I had to manually write out the 10 problems and the 4 multiple choice answers for each problem on one of my student's test because the secretary was too dumb to figure out that all she needed to do was turn the paper over to copy the back.

We shouldn't worry so much about the future of America. We should worry about its present.

Testing, Schmesting

Friday we had no school. Teachers still had to work, but a day without students is like a day off. Most of the teachers at my school spent the day at the first in a series of workshops about Extended Response. For you civilians, Extended Response (ER) is a section of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) in which students from 3-8 grades have to read a 3-4 page passage and then respond to a prompt about it. ER is the bane of every teacher's existence. We spend so much friggin' time talking about, learning about, complaining about, and teaching ER that I could explode. (I'm not sure why I could explode...that's just what came out).

Anyway, for all the time spent on it, we have very little understanding of it. Our kids don't do well on it. And as I learned yesterday, hardly any kids do well on it! The highest score you can get is a 4. Only 4-7% of all kids in the ENTIRE state of Illinois got a 4.

The ER is graded by an independent third party who uses a rubric that is supposed to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible. Everyone has access to the rubric so that we all know how the kids will be assessed. But, I'm sorry, there's NO WAY you can take subjectivity out of grading, unless you are grading something that's either right or wrong (like true/false or multiple choice). Yesterday we were given a passage to read and four samples of student ER from last year's test. Our task was to work with the people at our table and score each sample. It was a disaster. Responses that some of us scored a 1 (using the rubric, mind you) were actually scored a 4 and vice-versa. Granted we aren't trained graders, but we are the people teaching the students how to write these stupid things! And like I said, we've spent dozens and dozens of hours analyzing student ERs, talking about how to improve, etc., and we still don't know what we're doing. In fact, after the 3-hour seminar yesterday, I felt more confused than ever.

OH, and then we found out that the ER accounts for only 10% of the total reading score! Grrrrrr! For years They've been making it out like it was worth a hell of a lot more than that! Talk about time wasted in the classroom.

I'm so glad I'm not a kid today. These tests that they have to take are so stressful and LOOOONG. I understand that they're necessary as assessment tools, but the stakes resulting from their scores are so high. They determine the promotion or retention. They determine if your school meets federal standards (No Child Left Behind Act). And I found out yesterday, ISAT scores are factored into the Area Instructional Officers pay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Area Instructional Officers are the people directly above the principals of a group of schools). Uh, talk about a conflict of interest! That totally left a bad taste in my mouth.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I will spend much less time teaching my kids how to organize their thoughts into an bullshit extended response format this year and spend more time providing them with actual literacy experiences that I know will improve their reading (instead of extinguishing their passion for learning).

Going Green

I gave my students a science test last week. We've been learning about plants and fungi. The test was 25 multiple choice questions and 3 short essay questions. Most of my kids bombed the essay part of the test, so I decided not to count it. I counted the multiple choice questions and told them I was going to let them retake the essay questions.

One of the essay questions was: "Name three ways a dandelion and mushroom are alike and three ways they are different." This question was worth 6 points. Some of my kids gave good answers such as, "A dandelion has seeds and a mushroom has spores," or "Dandelions make their own food through photosynthesis while mushrooms take their energy from other living or dead things," or "Dandelions are plants and mushrooms are fungi..." y'know...stuff we actually LEARNED in class! A lot of the kids left the question blank, and some put dumb stuff like, "They look different."

They got their papers back and we went over possible correct answers together. When we got to that question, I asked the class what was so hard about this question, and I got an answer I never expected. Many of my kids do not know what a dandelion is. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT A DANDELION IS!!!! And worse, no one asked during the test! Uh, hello?!?!

Once I described one, they knew what I was talking about, which was somewhat of a relief. I just can't imagine not knowing, at age 9, what a dandelion was. When I think about it, though, it shouldn't surprise me. Many of these kids have spent their entire lives in an urban setting. While the south side of the city has many beautiful parks and open expanses of green, their homes aren't exactly overlooking these areas. Most of the places they go to play are crammed between two concrete buildings and contain no grass.

My biggest concern is that no one asked about the question while they were taking the test. I know it's a test and that they're supposed to get help, but this isn't a standardized state test or anything. I've got a lot of work to do with these kids. First on the list, bring them somewhere nice and green!