My son has autism, and you wouldn't believe the hoops we have had to jump through over the years. He has terrible test anxiety. When he took the PLAN test as a sophomore, they called me from school to pick him up. They said he had a petit mal seizure! He went through 8 months of scans and tests to determine no seize activity, just completely disoriented due to anxiety! He HAS to take the ACT soon, and I have worked for 18 months to get him to deal with that. Now, it's DEA testing all the time! He's tested out!
I am also a level 5 teacher with 25 years of experience, and the things that I have seen done to SPED kids in the name of testing has been appalling...but I am bound by confidentiality. School systems are listening to testing consortium rather than IEPs. The best interest of the child is lost in favor of doing whatever it takes to score well. What our system is too stupid to see is that this is an impossible task which has been placed before us. Our kids are being set up to fail so that the county will fail, and then the state will take over and farm out much in the same way correctional facilities do now. It just seems that nobody cares! TEA has been neutered, and the media and public are extremely hostile towards teachers. Common Core is being forced down our throat as are DATA walls and testing out the wazoo!
(This was posted anonymously to protect her child and her job. This teacher did not feel safe in publishing her school district, but would say that it is a small, rural district 50 miles outside of Nashville.)
All children have special needs. Excessive testing of students is robbing the joy, time, and funding from their education.
TN parents and teachers are seeing the un-piloted results of reform implementation at the classroom level:
The mismanagement...
the inappropriate and excessive testing...
teaching to the test...
the disconnect between top down mandates and classroom instruction...
...all of these things are disrupting real learning.
The plight of the learning disabled is just one example where parents and teachers should have been brought to the discussion at the beginning of the reform process. The disconnect between reform ideas and real world implementation is a canyon that seems to grow wider each day in our Tennessee public schools.
How can you, as an elected or appointed official, help improve the classroom experience of our disabled students? We are weary of the dismissive attitude of our State Board of Education on these issues. Some are saying that lawsuits are the only option, but we would much rather see the money spent on helping students instead of paying lawyers. Wouldn't you?
I am also a level 5 teacher with 25 years of experience, and the things that I have seen done to SPED kids in the name of testing has been appalling...but I am bound by confidentiality. School systems are listening to testing consortium rather than IEPs. The best interest of the child is lost in favor of doing whatever it takes to score well. What our system is too stupid to see is that this is an impossible task which has been placed before us. Our kids are being set up to fail so that the county will fail, and then the state will take over and farm out much in the same way correctional facilities do now. It just seems that nobody cares! TEA has been neutered, and the media and public are extremely hostile towards teachers. Common Core is being forced down our throat as are DATA walls and testing out the wazoo!
(This was posted anonymously to protect her child and her job. This teacher did not feel safe in publishing her school district, but would say that it is a small, rural district 50 miles outside of Nashville.)
All children have special needs. Excessive testing of students is robbing the joy, time, and funding from their education.
TN parents and teachers are seeing the un-piloted results of reform implementation at the classroom level:
The mismanagement...
the inappropriate and excessive testing...
teaching to the test...
the disconnect between top down mandates and classroom instruction...
...all of these things are disrupting real learning.
The plight of the learning disabled is just one example where parents and teachers should have been brought to the discussion at the beginning of the reform process. The disconnect between reform ideas and real world implementation is a canyon that seems to grow wider each day in our Tennessee public schools.
How can you, as an elected or appointed official, help improve the classroom experience of our disabled students? We are weary of the dismissive attitude of our State Board of Education on these issues. Some are saying that lawsuits are the only option, but we would much rather see the money spent on helping students instead of paying lawyers. Wouldn't you?
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