Reply #11: Our charter school does not "teach to the test" so much,

[woodsprite]

but then, their curriculum and expectations seem higher than most of the public schools around here. The school our daughter was at before, sent home "sample tests" weekly (reading comprehension, writing, and math). They received them on Mondays and returned them on Fridays. Before they started handing out the sample tests (that program ran 10 weeks), they had classes for the parents to show them how the work was expected to be done inorder to pass the test. They also showed us sample tests that students had completed that had been graded the various levels.

Teaching to test didn't really help the school's state grade as much as they thought it would. Her new school uses a different curriculum, but uses the benchmarks of the state test to determine which direction they teach. They don't teach strictly to test and they don't stop after the test. They also group kids according to level - something the other school didn't. You could just see the teachers' frustration with the policy and curriculum at her old school with them trying to accomodate everyone's learning levels.

The whole part about labeling a child based on the one test just burns me up. Now, what is it, Texas wants to put a child body mass index on their report cards. Kate said everyone had a blood sugar test last week in their school - no notes or anything were sent home about that. I went down to school and filed a letter with them and the school board. I don't mind her having it since diabetes does run in our family, but it shouldn't be done without parental permission.