A New Experience

I wanted to talk about a new experience I had this week as a teacher.  Yesterday I was a test proctor for students with special needs during our statewide examinations.  These were 3rd grade students and most of them I have had in class before, so I knew them fairly well.  Here is what I like about giving standardized tests to students with special needs (504 plans, IEP's, etc...):  These students should be held accountable for learning just like every other student and we should also hold them accountable for their behavior and progress.  In that sense, these standardized tests are appropriate. Whomever makes the tests seem to do a decent job of making it "user friendly", i.e., big text, lots of space, lots of color, etc...  However, I feel that the large majority of the material tested on was not appropriate for the students (at least the ones I was proctoring).  Students were asked to read an article and write about similarities and differences between people and the subject of the article (one student couldn't read and others have a very difficult time).  For the math portion the students were clueless.  Even simple arithmetic was all but impossible which means there was a whole lot of guessing going on.  I didn't see any attempt on the part of the test makers to focus on material more that their level.  And making these students sit quietly for 2.5 hrs?  Come on..... really? Even "normal" students have trouble with that.
I have no problem with measuring the progress of these students or with testing these students.  I feel like we need to rethink the way we do it so that we can get a more accurate picture of how these students progress. 

End of Day Thoughts on 3/1/2011

I don't mind state achivement tests, I think they can be a good tool to evaluate student learning.... My problem with state achivement tests is that they are usually the only tool used to evaluate students, teachers, schools, districts, etc...  and in some cases a state standardized test is not appropriate for students to take.  Example, do we really expect a student with severe special needs to perform exceptionally well on a standardized test?  Probably not.  However, that absolutely does not mean learning didn't take place during the school year nor does it mean the student has a bad teacher.  There are so many factors that contribute to student growth and learning...  Good diet, proper exercise, proper sleep, supportive and involved parents, students that do their homework everynight, reading at home, good teachers, good administrators, etc...  these are all generalizations and of course I could be way more specific, but I think you get the idea.  Therefore let us be intelligent about standardized testing and use them as only another tool rather than THE tool for student and teacher evaluation.

This is a great website my wife shared with me today:   http://www.khanacademy.org/