Our State Based Assessment (SBA) is coming up soon--yet another week will be stolen from the classroom. Administration is already hovering over us, asking us to teach to the test in order to "prepare our students." A few days ago I was asked, "What are you doing to prepare your students for the SBA." I was glad other teachers jumped in to answer the question, because my answer would have caused problems. My natural response to a question like that is something along the lines... I thought what we do all year long prepares them for assessments.
Needless to say, I will not be implementing drill-and-kill vocabulary. I do not plan to hand out past SBA tests for students to practice taking them in class. Nor will I give any lengthy lessons on the so-called ACE/RACE short answer response technique. Instead, I have devoted my class instructional time to exactly what my unit/lesson plans have indicated (which we turn in to administration): reading comprehension, critical thinking, contextual vocabulary, writing to enhance critical thinking, research, presenting research in a formal manner, and much, much more.
In addition to the implication that I should teach to the test, I have been told that someone else (who does not teach my students any subject) will be administering the SBA to them. Boom <-- that's my mind being blown. Furthermore, one of the people who will be administering the SBA to my students, sadly, has revealed themselves (improper pronoun use here is intentional to avoid gender revelation) to have their own, ugly agenda.
Never mind the argument that Hanna "Montana" Skandera (New Mexico's acting education secretary and who has never been in the classroom) is currently implementing an evaluation system that relies on MY students' standardized test scores to evaluate my teaching effectiveness (I'll save this gem for another blog). And never mind that neither the current SBA nor our textbooks match up with the newly implemented Common Core Standards. What really infuriates me is that an overwhelming amount of research demonstrates that students perform better on these types of tests when they are administered by their own teacher. So, why in the world is my administration refusing to set my students up for success?!
At first, I thought maybe my administration was just uninformed, didn't know the research out there showing that students feel more comfortable with a teacher who knows them and has a trusted relationship with them. Then I discover, other teachers have been fighting this issue for the last few years. The administration is purposefully organizing testing this way! At this point, I am at a complete loss for words.
Interesting and brave musings that I applaud and agree with. I too work within the district and am un-enamored with these tactics pertaining to standardized testing. Did you have to sign the notice to not disparage the test?
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