Coming out of the last two weeks of SBA testing, I am physically and emotionally exhausted. I did not administer any tests to students. My administration does not allow teachers who actually teach the students to administer the test because they fear we might help students cheat. Instead, I spent one week babysitting. Yes, babysitting. The following week, I had so many students absent that on several occasions, I only had one and two students present for classes.
About two weeks prior to the testing, my administration met with our department and instructed us to come up with a curriculum for the freshmen and senior students who would not be testing. This was a little bizarre, considering I do not teach any of these students. Essentially, we were instructed to come up with busy work for these students who I had never encountered before. As one can imagine, this plan was a complete disaster.
I wish I would have recorded that week of school. Parents truly need to know what a waste of time and resources that week actually is for the students who are not testing, at least at my school. I know there are more efficient ways of conducting the days of testing. At least that's what I've heard from teachers at other districts.
I am now behind in my lesson plans, all due to testing. Students will now have a unit severely shortened--a valuable unit of learning--all due to testing. And I am left with so many unanswered questions... when and how did this become the norm? Why has this testing become so significantly important that it overrules actual learning in the classroom? How much is all of this really costing us? Who is really profiting from this? Is the testing really helping the students? And I cannot help but wonder, what happened to the days when students passed a class... passed their grade levels 9-12 that it meant they were proficient to graduate high school.
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