The first day of school was August 15th. I have done "the first day" for about 27 years as a teacher. I have never regretted my career choice. The current media emphasis on testing and the conversations testing arouses, have required me to concretely examine my profession. Sometime in September, test scores will be released to parents and the media. Principals received their school's test results in mid-August and the discussion around testing started the minute teachers entered their school buildings. Students are now sitting in a class where they will be given their results and they will have feelings about what they consider to be success or failure.
Does any other profession begin a year like this? NCLB, the national law put into motion by George W. Bush requires all students in the USA be proficient in reading and math by 2014 on a state approved standardized test. Principals are held accountable in a variety of ways for not meeting the testing goals. So they pass it on! Staff meetings are about analyzing our scores, results made by students who are long gone. Does this make us better at what we do? Do your kids learn more as a result? Maybe. Sitting with our colleagues to share departmental strengths and weaknesses makes for good practice. But teachers do this already at least once a month.
We may be squeezing blood out of a turnip here, when we ask that ALL students reach proficiency in reading and math. I teach students with learning disabilities. The test results from my class depends on the learning rate of my students, the behavior of the group, how many students are living in poverty, and on what they learned before they came to me. Some years, the results are awesome. Some years they are not. However, I have learned I can not compare year to year. I use the best teaching techniques I know, knowing the students respond to them differently. The individual usually improves, but not enough to meet proficiency. Imagine being a student who never makes proficiency! How would you feel about school? Do you blame your teachers? I don't blame the student or myself. I see learning differences as part of life.
One positive result of NCLB has been the way teachers have raised their expectations about what students can accomplish. I have seen students work in classes successfully who have scored poorly on standardized testing for years. Yet they make it! They succeed, even though the tests scores would indicate otherwise. This would indicate that learning is an interactive process. A "moment-in-time" standardized test can not measure that process. Educator expectations must be high for all students. Yet, the standardized test scores can not be the one piece of data we use to judge students.
How do we react as parents to test scores? I remember the first standardized test my nephew J. took. (He is now a high school graduate.) In second grade, he scored advanced in reading and math. Just like many of his peers, it was difficult to determine, was he gifted? Or a good test taker? It turned out J is a good test taker and an average student. He had to be pushed by his family to succeed in some classes, others he flew through. My own daughter was such a poor test-taker her third grade teacher recommended her for special classes (like the ones I teach). Now, she is in college, holds a good job, is successful because she never gives up and loves to learn.
The test results do not define the student, the teacher or the school. For me, a teacher is best defined by what we do every day in our classroom, how we impart knowledge, how much students want to learn when they move to the next grade level. Students should not be judged completely by one score from one test, but by their performance over time, and where they end up. Any teacher, regardless of student test scores, who takes students through the process of learning and finds the student wants to learn more; must be considered a "good teacher".
