DESE and Stupidity

I am currently feeling the need to vent some frustrations with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, so please bear with me.

MAP Testing is the tool of the devil! I swear to God, the ultimate stupidity of the supposed "educated" educators that seem to occupy the jobs to be found in DESE never ceases to amaze me. I want to make it clear that I have no problem with the idea of a test that measures how well are kids are able to think, encompassing performance events with a variety of passages and response possibilities, but I do have a BIG problem with how DESE decides to set up the test, how they seem to throw us curve balls every year, and how they use the test results.

First of all, I have just completed the first two days of scribing for one of our students on the Communication Arts Test for 5th grade. Without breaking FERPA, you need to understand that this child is a non-reader. Yes, he has an IEP, but just barely since it seems to be almost impossible to qualify for any help anymore. Everyone knows he can't read. He was born with serious health problems and his doctor wants him to see a neurologist, but his parents' insurance won't pay for it, but I digress onto a topic for another rant. Even though he can't read, I can't read the test to him, just pronouncing one word per sentence. His comment to me was, "If you could read this to me, I bet I could answer these questions." I wanted to say, "You're right, you probably could." Also, since he's in 5th grade, he has to take the 5th grade test. Here's a thought, how about testing kids on their level! Instead of frustrating them with material that they expend all of their energy trying to figure out what the words are, why don't we give them tests on their own level so they can expend their mental energy on crafting quality answers and showing the powers that be what they are capable of doing. By the way, what we keep hearing from our district's curriculum people is how we should be instructing kids at their ability level, doing small group guided reading, leveled non-fiction sets, adapting to their level. Isn't it funny that we are to follow best practices in instruction, which calls for material on individual level, but the state-mandated test is a one size fits all approach.

Second, in the whole balanced literacy push, we've been told to teach our students to highlight and underline important information in passages they read to help them craft quality answers in performance events for testing. In writers workshop, science, history, math, etc., we've been highlighting and underlining like crazy, telling them this will help them give better answers on homework and on the tests. We have a MAP training session about 3 weeks ago, and guess what! We should not allow our students to underline or highlight passages because it doesn't work too well when they go to scan the tests into the computer. If they highlight or underline, it had better be done lightly. Don't you think they could have figured this out BEFORE now?!?

Third, the way DESE set up the testing days was idiotic to say the least. We have to follow their testing procedures to the letter. God forbid you happen to not read something word for word, or paraphrase to help a student better understand what is being asked of them and to feel more at ease with the whole testing situation. Instead let's stress them out to the point of pulling out all of their eyelashes! Yesterday's test was supposed to take anywhere from 40-60 minutes. It had one passage to read with two small sections of questions to answer. Today's test was supposed to take 96-111 minutes. It had 5 or 6 reading passages that were of considerable length along with numerous multiple choice questions and in-depth written response questions. Imagine if you were a non-reader and this task was placed in front of you. Oh, and by the way, even though you have problems, severe ones, because you're not in the bottom 3% of the state's population you have to take the test on your grade level, regardless of your ability, and you can't have an adapted test. Oh, and even though you're not stupid, you just can't read, you can't have someone read or explain things to you like you have on a regular basis because you have an IEP. But I guess this is the one time that IEP's that we are to follow to the letter every other day of the school year don't count on the 4 days we do MAP testing. We started testing today at 8:30 AM. This student and I finished at 1:40 PM. We did stop for lunch, but that gives you an idea of how this test was for him. Why couldn't the test have been split more evenly? After the second passage, he was brain-fried. By the end of the test, I was right there with him. This wasn't a complain from just me, the other teachers who had the "normal" students said the same thing. It took our kids so long to finish the test today that our lunch schedule got screwed up. In the regular classroom, according to the directions, you were only supposed to take one break. That is just stupid! We do good to get them to sit still and stay focused for 15 minutes but they were to sit still and stay focused for 40 minutes!

Fourth, the way the test results are used is stupid. Instead of comparing apples to apples, the results are used to compare apples to oranges. In most districts, these tests are used to supposedly measure teacher performance. I have yet to land in a district where the pressure isn't put on the teachers and their performance instead of on the students. Don't get me wrong, I am not a big fan of the push for highstakes testing. For that matter, I'm not a big fan of the huge emphasis we put on testing period. I believe that the work I observe from my students on a daily basis is much more accurate in evaluating their performance. Any test is a very small snapshot of what is going on with that student on that day, even the tests that are supposed to test student's ability for problem solving/critical thinking abilities. However, the results are used most often for comparing the performance of the teacher's classes from year to year. The students scores aren't looked at and compared to their scores on previous tests from year to year to see if the students are progressing. So we compare the scores of different groups and say that indicates the teacher's level of competence without taking into consideration that some groups are smarter than others. Some groups are more serious about testing than others. Some groups have more behavior problems than others. You can have a sharp class one year and the dumbest class on the planet the next year. Oh and by the way, your job and your district's accreditation depends on keepin those test scores up and meeting AYP. Even though I honestly believe that teachers want to keep learning at the center of all that we do, we are being pushed into focusing more and more on testing. We know this is not a best practice, we know being an educated individual is more important or broader than being able to pass a test, but with NCLB, it seems to me that the bottom line is no longer a quality education, it is having high enough statistics to get funding. We've lost our focus and future generations are paying the price.

I wish the general public would wake up. When is common sense going to prevail? What's even more disturbing, we have to do the Math test next week. The student said, "I'll do pretty good in the math part." Then he found out that there will be word problems and that I still can't read those to him and he looked at me and said, "Well, I guess I'll flunk that one too then." Since I can't help you, I guess you will. What burns me up is that I have to sit by and watch him fail, when even though I'm a teacher and could explain things to him without giving him the answers or doing the work for him. He's not stupid, DESE is.