After turning in my booklets, AP says come here, I need you to sit with her while she finishes. Who, you say? Goes and gets little 3rd grader on the bed in the clinic because she had to leave her class to puke her guts out with fever and crying, puts us in a tiny closet-sized room, scoots a trash can over and says here in case you get sick again, tells her to finish up so she can go home. She wept all doubled over the whole time crying and snotting on everything. Poor baby.
- A public school teacher in Shelby County, TN 4/30/15
- A public school teacher in Shelby County, TN 4/30/15
T came to my class after he had been kicked out of every other class in his grade. He told me that he used to love school in 3rd grade but then his teachers stopped doing history, his favorite subject, in favor of math and reading skills for TCAP. He told me he was acting out because "I'm a no-good piece of crud who can't pass TCAP". This is T now, who I have arranged to be my historian intern, doing independent research on primary sources on a segregation-era private park for African Americans that once occuppied the land where our school now stands. College and career ready DESPITE TCAP.
- from a teacher in Metro Nashville School District, 2015
- from a teacher in Metro Nashville School District, 2015
When I think of the TCAP test I gave this week, it makes me angry all over again. I tested several ELL students, two of whom I either had to mime what to do or have another student translate directions for me. God bless them! Those two didn't have to do the reading/language arts portion, but they did have to do science and math and will have to do social studies online next week. I read aloud the science and math but not the ELA portion, because, you know, we want to make them feel totally inadequate (my opinion). If they can't read well enough to do ELA, what makes us think they can read enough to do math and science, even with a teacher reading aloud?
I had to report an irregularity because one boy, new to us from Myanmar, kept going to the next math section when he wasn't supposed to because he saw the other students checking over their work and thought he was supposed to keep working, too. At least that's what I think he must have thought.
Can you imagine sitting down to take a test on what you know, but the test is written in Russian? Then being told you scored very low and must work hard to catch up? You're not stupid, but you're not Russian, either.
My other ELL students in the room worked very hard, but they also had problems that I, of course, could do nothing about. I'll give you an example. One boy, from Kurdistan, called me over during the ELA portion and asked if there was a mistake on his test. I looked at it. The word was 's'mores.' What the heck? I'm pretty sure they don't have s'mores in Kurdistan. Plus, since he's been here, we've been telling him that we put apostrophe 's' AFTER a word. Of course he was confused. And I couldn't help him other than to say it wasn't a mistake. I'm still furious about it. This was the ELSA test, *designed* for ELL students. How out of touch are we?
Sorry for the rant. It just really works my last nerve that we, as teachers, work so hard all year to help our students, and then they are misled and made to feel inadequate after making so much real life progress simply because one test is unfair and unrealistic. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
When you consider our standardized test scores, it's important to remember that Nashville- with a thriving immigrant and refugee population- serves the largest percentage of English Language Learners in the state. What are we doing to these poor children?
- a teacher in Metro Nashville, 2015
I had to report an irregularity because one boy, new to us from Myanmar, kept going to the next math section when he wasn't supposed to because he saw the other students checking over their work and thought he was supposed to keep working, too. At least that's what I think he must have thought.
Can you imagine sitting down to take a test on what you know, but the test is written in Russian? Then being told you scored very low and must work hard to catch up? You're not stupid, but you're not Russian, either.
My other ELL students in the room worked very hard, but they also had problems that I, of course, could do nothing about. I'll give you an example. One boy, from Kurdistan, called me over during the ELA portion and asked if there was a mistake on his test. I looked at it. The word was 's'mores.' What the heck? I'm pretty sure they don't have s'mores in Kurdistan. Plus, since he's been here, we've been telling him that we put apostrophe 's' AFTER a word. Of course he was confused. And I couldn't help him other than to say it wasn't a mistake. I'm still furious about it. This was the ELSA test, *designed* for ELL students. How out of touch are we?
Sorry for the rant. It just really works my last nerve that we, as teachers, work so hard all year to help our students, and then they are misled and made to feel inadequate after making so much real life progress simply because one test is unfair and unrealistic. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
When you consider our standardized test scores, it's important to remember that Nashville- with a thriving immigrant and refugee population- serves the largest percentage of English Language Learners in the state. What are we doing to these poor children?
- a teacher in Metro Nashville, 2015
If you haven't seen this, you should:
American students face a ridiculous amount of testing. John Oliver explains how standardized tests impact school funding, the achievement gap, how often kids are expected to throw up.
High-stakes tests have created high-stakes classrooms in Tennessee. Evaluating teachers using the high-stakes standardized testing of human children is a wrong that needs to be stopped. Please, speak up and stop this madness!
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