Arne says parents to blame for test stress. Threatens fed intervention if Opt Outs continue.

[LiberalCatholic]

31. I am a teacher in Massachusetts.

Teachers are evaluated, as they should be. However, testing is not a true evaluation for teaching ability. Some students do not learn material in the time frame that standards have set. For example, the developmental age for a child to learn to read is 4-8 years old. That is a big range. That means a child that learns to read in second grade (age 7) is developmentally in an acceptable range BUT does not meet the common core standards for reading. This does not mean that the child has been somehow failed by his or her teachers. Rather, in my district the child gets support from the classroom teacher as well as a reading teacher. The student's abilities are not a reflection on the teacher's.

Likewise, the PARCC is developmentally inappropriate. The questions that my third graders were forced to answer were more appropriate for fifth grade (which I have also taught). The test is timed, which is also inappropriate (students could take as much time as was needed when they took MCAS). There is NEVER another time that someone has a short amount of time to plan, write and edit some writing besides tests. Articles, speeches, college papers, letters to the editor, and even this post may have a deadline. However, the writer has an opportunity to stop, reflect, and edit. This is not as easily done on high stakes tests with a time restriction. And I believe it is not a true reflection of a student's best work.

I believe that testing should be done twice a year. The first test should be in September or whenever the district begins the school year. Schools, and by schools I mean teachers, should be given the scores for each student. This would give us a tremendous amount of data. The students should then be tested again in the very late spring. The goal would be to look for growth in each student. I would like to see a test that is not geared to trick students, or punish districts, but to actually assist in and support their education.

Make no mistake, this current push that we have seen is to privitize education. WE will NEVER have 100% of a school population meeting all the standards. Not all children will, or should, attend college. We need to make sure that there are good career paths for students who do not want to, or could not succeed in, college.