State Testing for Elementary Kids

Are your kids out of district with permission? If so, why are you worried about that? If not, can't you be fired for that? Regardless, you have rights as a parent independent of your job. If your kids happen to be sick on those days do not broadcast it.

@coilstrand just because your child is in a functional skills classroom does not mean he will not have to take the tests. We have students in our profoundly disabled class who still have to take the tests. A few years ago I had 2 students from that class who functioned on a 2nd grade level who had to take a Physical Science EOC which was written at the 10th grade level.

You know? I'm not totally sure. 

We have new state tests this year, and no one seems to know what they'll look like yet. 

And I'm the one administering them. 

Fun times.

Every single day on Yahoo there is an article or two or three about the testing and how parents are trying to get rid of it. I believe in accountability, but this test (PARCC) is way too much for elementary school kids. It is absolutely nothing like the CAT, ITBS, and even CSAP tests that we all took (or those of us in the midwest might have taken). The level of expectations and intensity of just the practice tests is very challenging.

Our school district will loose 3 mornings minimum in feb for 'practice' testing to be sure everyone district wide can sign on at once, can open the testing platform, and know how to pick an answer. Then we loose 5 mornings in March for the tests. Then 3 more mornings in May for follow up tests.

Oh and those of you whose children are taking the PARCC remind them to read all the questions thoroughly ( as always ) we've been told some questions randomly are written in a 'reverse' sort of style where the child must choose which answer is not a correct answer. 3 are right and one is not. They say it is clearly indicated in the question, but children ( at least here ) are not used to that form of questioning.

Yes, this is my situation, too.  I'm a music teacher and I received a lower salary this year (no bonus) because my school's reading/math/writing/science scores didn't improve enough.  Not that they were bad or we had a low passing rate - they weren't and we didn't - but they didn't improve enough over last year's very good performance to trigger the bonus in the district's algorithm.  The system is set up for failure.

Never mind that I don't teach any of those subjects.  Oh, and I'm only eligible for a fraction of the bonus core-area teachers can get if they win the magic algorithm game, but if they lose, I lose along with them.

Don't forget about all of the testing they do throughout the year to see how the kids are going to do on the "official" tests.

Yup!

Do you think they might be less likely to rush through if they hadn't already taken three, three-day, full-length practice tests?

I have a hard time with kids being told they can't do a legitimate brain-building activity like reading a book because they have to be absolutely sure they've double-checked all the answers on their developmentally inappropriate test - for the fourth time in four months.  God forbid the kid actually wants to learn something.

Oh, and to add insult to injury - I see each of my classes once a week.  That's a total of about 32 hours of instructional time each year.  But every time we do a practice test or the real thing, I am converted from music teacher to extra long recess monitor because we have to squeeze in 45 minutes of planning and 30 minutes of lunch time for all the classroom teachers on testing days, so we end up with double and triple classes.  So that's about five hours of lost instructional time, or about 16% of my total yearly teaching time, lost because students are taking tests in other subjects.

And this is totally unfair! Well, I think it's unfair to base teachers' salaries on test scores anyway, but it's even more unfair to penalize a "specials" (what we call the subjects like art, music, library, PE, etc.) teacher who had nothing to do with it.

But this situation of "school didn't improve enough" is bad too. I mean, at a certain point a school might not be able to improve anymore. Plus, these scores that didn't improve are from a different set of kids from last year's scores. ugh.

And don't get me started on the whole situation of second-language kids, and military kids. One of the local Army bases is within the boundary of my kids' former elementary school. They get transfers all the time. How is a kid from Texas supposed to pass a Virginia history exam? The school is allowed to exempt them only if they've arrived recently (I'm not sure what that rule is, but it's months not years). -- Second language kids are also exempted for a short time. But to compare a school that's mostly all white (which is the case in one section of my county) with a school that's a very mixed demographic including lots of second-language kids is just totally stupid. I know the teachers are excellent because I was a parent in this county for years and now I do substitute teaching. I see what they do day after day. In fact, nothing specific against those teachers in the all-white part of the county, but I think the teachers in the other schools work harder. They have to work harder to teach kids who arrive with no English and with parents who had maybe a 3rd grade education in their own country. They also end up spending a LOT of money out of their own pockets for books, etc. -- up in that all-white part, where everyone happens to have a lot of money, all the teacher has to do is send home a letter than says "dear parents, we've noticed that our Dr. Seuss books are getting a bit raggedy...." and boom, the parents have sent in multiple sets of Dr. Seuss books. 

ugh, rant, rave, complain. 

Oh don't get me started on the military kids taking these tests. I think monklady123 and I could be talking about the same school. The students at this school are so unprepared to take these tests because of the multiple moves and PCSes that they have done. The teachers do their best, but if you get a kid in March that has been out of school for several weeks because of a military move, there isn't a whole heck of a lot the teacher can do to catch them up on what they need to know for the SOLs that start in April. Thank goodness our pay isn't tied to test scores. 

The testing atmosphere in in our schools today is so sad.  Look at the money trail, and it isn't hard to figure out why all this testing has become the norm. 

My kids (they are ten) do go back and check.  We give them a lot of incentives to do that and it does help.  I don't know that most schools do that.  They cannot put their heads down.  Thankfully my kids still try for the most part.  I feel badly for the high school teachers though.  I think the kids want to read so the time will go faster, not to learn anything.  I have had two kids go through all of this testing and from their point of view they worked hard in elementary school and checking their test over and over again was boring, but they found lots of mistakes.  

I test fast and have no doubt I'd finish with lots of time to spare. I can stare off into space with the best of them and not getting to read would not have given me a push to recheck my test.

In fact since there are few positive or negative consequences for test achievement, I would have totally bombed the tests in middle school just because. I did it with the iowa. Just filled in bubbles on the last one I had to take after scoring in the 9th percentile on all previous tests

Opting out just means your student doesn't take the test. They stay home or can sit in the hallway or whatever your school does with them. Not all states allow opt outs.
Opting out sounds like a great solution, but it does hurt the teachers and the school and if only a couple opt out, it doesn't do much in the grand scheme.

Earlier this year, Colorado instituted a new test for Seniors. They found it unfair and walked out, protesting it. THAT got the attention of the news and the legislature. An organized opt out/protest at multiple schools and mutliple districts will be needed to get anything done.

If I won a large powerball jackpot, I would start a campaign to end this madness.