I picked these tests at random, essentially the top tests in a stack. They are entirely representative of the group. These are samples of the “bubble tests,” as the kids and I call them. Written by an outside consulting firm, these tests are being used for … more benchmarking? More data? Spreadsheet practice? On the plus side, the bubble tests don’t count in their grade. I tell them to take the bubble tests seriously; The results are being recorded in spreadsheets that may be used for later class placement or something. It’s best to take all tests seriously whether you know why you are administering them or not.

Coaches bring me bubble sheets already labeled with individual student names. I pass the sheets out to the appropriate students. I give them copies of the inappropriate tests that go with these copies. How do I know the tests are inappropriate? Well, for one thing, my students never pass these tests. I ought to check to see if someone snuck through on one. Some pictures will help show what I mean. I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. The whim to take photos came at the last minute before I was supposed to turn these tests over to academic coaches. I wish I’d taken more pictures, but these are representative of the whole. I will take more pictures of the next batch.

There’s a spreadsheet somewhere. O.K. I’ll try to find the spreadsheet.

I will observe that some of these kids could do a better job today. They’ve made progress. My classes pretty much all understand stem-and-leaf plots now. Their MAP (Measures of Academic Progress, a benchmark test) show significant growth overall. Admin appears happy enough with my scores and admin is frantic to get school scores up. They would have done better if we could have spent more time on measures of central tendency. But outsiders have created the curriculum and pacing for the year. We were not allowed that time. Given that these kids entered my class scoring from a 1st to 5th grade level in math, according to MAP scores, with most of the group in the middle of that range, these questions were wholly inappropriate, especially for a group of bilingual students with English challenges. They were also inappropriate for the grade’s special education students who had to take exactly the same test. To be clear, I did not cherry-pick this group of tests. I just grabbed a few from the top of the stack.

I wasted my time and their time administering this test. We have a great deal of remedial math to cover, as the tests make evident. The bubble tests may be reasonable instruments for many students in regular classes, but they are not helping the students who wrote the answers above.

On the plus side, grading these tests is absurdly easy. Also on the plus side, the students will never see these tests after they complete them. I grade the problems they write out and hand the answer sheets to coaches who grade the multiple choice section. Then the tests vanish except for red ink in a spreadsheet that I haven’t bothered to look at for months.

In the real world, a test should be based on material that has been taught — and not blasted through at light-speed because the whole grade has to march in lock-step to some pie-in-the-sky curriculum — with ample study opportunities provided beforehand. Then that test should be reviewed shortly afterwards so that students can see where the test went right and where it went wrong. Tests can be excellent learning tools when used correctly.

I’d say a bonfire is the only practical use for the tests above.

“The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.”
~ Jon Stewart via bob@lakesideadvisors.com

My Facebook is jammed full of notes, too many to read. It’s replete with recipes. I know many disgruntled teachers, but almost none of them are telling their stories in social media. Districts are known to spy on social media accounts. So I go in to find the latest ways to make banana bread and … let me check. I found some sort of green vegetable smoothie, lemon bundt cake and peanut butter cheesecake bars, not to mention a great many dogs who need forever homes. I am told that in case of a blackout, a crayon will burn 30 minutes. Sex on Malibu Beach calls for a red, sugar-rimmed glass and making homemade ginger ale looks like fun.

I’m not sure about the looks of this former coworker’s soup, but I bet it tastes great:

Oops. Getting distracted here. Let me wander back toward my actual topic.

I always happy to seize a real, paper note nowadays. I like the idea that students are writing to each other even if I have to deprive them of scraps of paper with somebody’s latest romantic adventures. Sometimes I correct the note’s spelling and grammar if the contents are not too personal. (That discourages notes!)

I’ve raised a flag in my PARCC posts, though, that I want to keep in the picture. The other bilingual teacher and I are the only 7th grade teachers in my school with easy access to laptops on a regular basis. The Bilingual Director used bilingual funds to ensure that her teachers had Chromebooks before the rest of the school. Other classes still fight for access. They share, negotiate and, during testing, do without. For that matter, bilingual had to do without during testing due to bandwidth issues.

This issue exacerbates the divide between the haves and have-nots in our educational system. Students in wealthier districts have more technology, usually both at school and at home. A recent post showed my many printouts of student work. I print because they can’t print — not at school or at home. We don’t have paper for the school copiers, much less for the computer labs which historically have hardly ever had paper anyway. The two computer labs are often unavailable, or their associated printers are unavailable.

My students do have internet access through their phones. The number of technically impoverished kids with iPhones sometimes astonishes me. One of my students has the same first name and the same phone as me. These kids do reach Facebook and social media, and I keep hammering home those lessons on the dangers of inappropriate posts.

But my students struggle to type on a keyboard. They are barely conversant in PowerPoint and Googledocs. They hardly know Microsoft Word or Excel at all since they are living in the land of Googledocs. Many holes in their practical, technical knowledge need to be plugged.

Eduhonesty: Looking at pictures of puppies and kitties who need homes and memes about school are no substitute for knowledge.

But where will new technology money come from? I’m afraid the Board might lay off music and art teachers to find further funding for technology. In a snapshot, I believe America’s technology gap cries out for reforms in school funding. Zip codes should not determine access to computer-based learning.

Teaching can suck every minute of every day. When the lesson planning, grading and other paperwork gets done, there are parent calls to make, flipcharts to create, and the many, other random Post-It notes or phone memos to handle. The note near my keyboard reminds me to see about pay for a recent Saturday development opportunity. My phone tells me to go to the Board office to pick up a copy of the Board’s acceptance of my resignation. Post-It notes and memos proliferate, carrying tiny details about subs for field trips and disciplinary conversations with the Dean.

I used to get up, make my coffee and toast, and head straight to the computer, cup and plate in hand. I began work not long after the tea kettle finished whistling. I had mail to read, papers to put into the gradebook, handouts to print, or some other task that I’d cobble together while petting the cat and talking to the dog. I quit that breakfast routine awhile back, though, and this post is a recommendation for teachers or anyone else with a long day: Don’t work during breakfast. I sit in front of the window in the kitchen now and eat in peace. I try to leave my phone in the charger so I don’t start playing games or looking at memos. I may read the Economist, but I try to simply watch the world out the window. I also meditate for a few minutes during the day when time allows.

Eduhonesty: Teachers run academic marathons, year after year. I recognize the rhythm of the years now, that point in October when people begin to feel winded, the brief respite that is Winter Break, lifting spirits into January. In February, teachers lounges turn gloomy, a snappy, sometimes lugubrious, weary mood that will slowly begin to improve in March, as temperatures rise and days grow longer. By March, student academic growth provides a renewed sense of purpose that helps sustain teachers through those last few months.

Teachers are better teachers when they leave time for rest and play. Marathoners must pace themselves. So must teachers. Whether a mosaic class, a daily work-out at the gym, or a regular break to watch basketball, we need to find mental escapes and refreshments. My quiet breakfast eases me into the day, reminding me to take care of myself while I am attempting to take care of everybody else.

Apparently a day or two of make-ups remain for the new, national standardized test called PARCC. We’ve been at this for weeks. The school itself is pretty much back to normal, as normal as we get anyway. I am saving unused, previously printed copies now so I can print on the blank side. We discussed time demands for PARCC at lunch. Apparently, our lengthy test window has been necessary in many districts. Districts that did not have enough technology for PARCC had been planning to use paper and pencil copies but then discovered that those copies were exorbitantly expensive. Computer testing saves money. Since many schools don’t have the hardware or bandwidth to test all at once, though, they end up taking turns. We tested grade by grade. Some schools have had to test group by group, classroom by classroom. I can’t even imagine what a mess that must be.

I observed that maybe PARCC would serve as a useful wake-up call. Schools might realize that they were short of necessary technology. A music teacher quickly objected that districts would probably eliminate music and art teachers to try to buy those missing laptops and laptop carts. I suspect she’s right. We all know how important computer literacy has become today. If districts don’t have computers, most likely they can’t afford to purchase that useful technology with available funds. Few districts have waiting piles of unused money sitting around.

Eduhonesty: Testing testing testing. I gave a required math quiz today, one that all seventh grade math classes had to take. In the next two days, I have to give a math and a science final. I had better drop this blog and print more notes for my classes.

I have printed about an inch worth of notes tonight, the science and math student notes from the week. I’ve got a fair number of pages yet to print. Only a couple of kids in my classes have printers at home. I have great difficulty printing at school, a point that’s moot now that there’s no paper. I’d have to send a job and then run my personal paper across the school, or put my paper in the copier, go to my room to print and then risk my paper being used up by another teacher. I could try to use the computer in the copy room. That has been known to work but it’s a time-consuming and iffy process. Actually, printing from my room virtually never works even on the best of days due to issues with teachers cancelling jobs in the queue. That was true even when the district had paper.

Another teacher who works in a distant, Washington D.C. charter school said, “How do you run out of paper?” (She meant my district, not me personally.)

I have no clue. If we had been given an allocation and had used that allocation up, the paper crisis might be understandable. But this “Oops! No paper!” thing falls into another category– Exponential Ineptitude might be the Jeopardy title.

That teacher and I discussed my conviction that homework has fallen to new lows since people are not willing to use their own paper to print homework. The Washington D.C. teacher observed she absolutely would not be using her own paper to print homework, especially given the low pay in my admittedly impoverished district. I shrugged. They don’t do the homework they copy from the document camera nearly as often as they do homework on clean, white printed sheets.

I liked the suggestion of a former teacher: Have the students take their notes on their bodies in washable ink. That would save my paper and the kids would love it.

In washable markers were cheaper, I might think about his plan. Maybe I could march my class to the Board Office. Those notes on Mercury and Venus running down forearms would make an impressive protest.

Not every district needs to increase the length of their school day. Where I live, student test scores show kids at the top of the state charts. One of our two high schools made a U.S. News and World Report list of top 100 high schools in the United States. Students in local schools are doing fine with a 180 day school year, and a school day of average length.

The same can not be said for the high school in the district where I work. Those kids are in the bottom 10% of the state. Many of them never make it to college. A substantial percentage never graduate from high school.

I can identify one vital difference. The kids where I live do a great deal of homework. My children and their friends frequently had homework. They expected to do that homework, too. Where I work, the homework load is much lighter and problems with lack of completion dog teachers and administrators. We are supposed to identify those students who are not doing homework and issue Friday detentions in the school where I teach. An elaborate system has been put into place to force homework completion. Yet I still hear teachers in the teachers’ lounge complaining about low rates of homework completion. I know teachers who give little homework for this reason; they never expect to get most the homework back anyway. Another reason for lack of homework has been the district’s lack of paper. When you have to buy your own paper to make copies and less than one-half of those copies come back — many only partially done — a real disincentive exists for the assignment of homework.

(If you are new to this blog, please read back for recent posts about the paper crisis.)

Eduhonesty: Homework problems argue for a longer day where I work. If the work does not get done at home, the work should be done in the afternoon at school. I would suggest required, daily homework in core classes, with a 3:30 to 5:00 mandatory tutoring period during which students were expected to finish their homework and then read age-appropriate books from classrooms or libraries.

As America’s schools become more diverse, we need to start thinking outside our traditional boxes. If a district can’t deliver results in a 180 day year with students going from 8:00 to 2:45, then maybe that district ought to try a 200-day year with school days that end at 5:00. More instruction and more homework time can only help underperforming students.

Changes in school funding might be required, of course. Any extended school day and year will require increased funding. As it stands, ironically, the districts that can most afford to lengthen school days and years tend to be the districts that have no need for those extra hours and days.

I’ve heard reports that these better-funded districts even supply teachers with paper.

“Ms. Q, is it true that you get a lot of money to hold the pole when they are fixing the roads?”

We talked careers today. Part of the challenge for my district could be heard in the subtexts of that conversation. Union roofer was one favored option, along with other careers in construction. Garbageman was another known source of good pay. Prostitute came in a distant third. I weighed in on the risks and short life for that career. Stylist had fans, as did professional athlete.

For years, teachers have been pushing professional careers at these students. Those efforts don’t seem to have amounted to much. I discussed the high salaries in healthcare. As soon as law came up, my class shot it down. Seven years of college was absurd. Anything that required more than two years of college ran into trouble, although elementary school teacher remained on some lists. Two-year options received at least a short nod. Dental hygienist did not get shot down coming out of the gate anyway.

Eduhonesty: These kids have had a rough year, a year of test after test that they could barely understand. They don’t like school itself much now. I suspect they like it less than they did last year. If we want to sell higher education, we need to start looking more closely at the psychological effects of testing. I’ve never, ever had a group that aspired to so little. In the past, I usually received a few answers like doctor, lawyer or architect. Today, they asked about the amount of college required to be an elementary school teacher and at least one student, after hearing that a full four years of college might be required, decided she would prefer to be a hair stylist.

In no way am I suggesting that garbageman or union roofer are not honorable careers. The world needs stylists. But that career conversation was nonetheless disheartening. My students simply did not want to be in school. Breathing in a cloud of dust while standing all day holding a heavy pole, as jackhammers rattled their teeth and eardrums, sounded more appealing than staying in school for an extra two years.

A pretty girl up front emerged from her usual impassive indifference to grin at me and agree that the world was a weird place, too weird for selling your body on 10th street. That topic of conversation caught her interest in a way that magma, lava and rocks had not. Suddenly, this quiet little girl met me with an engaged, worldly viewpoint that is still giving me pause some seven hours later. That college talk that we are all selling? No one in the class I talked to this afternoon appeared to be buying.

We need to figure out to what extent testing may be part of these shifting and declining dreams and expectations. If I’m right, opportunity costs from lost instructional time may be only a small part of the crisis our too-often-blind search for data may be creating. It’s hard to sell studying, homework and academic-improvement to a kid whose favorite plan is turning a sign from stop to slow and back to stop again — although I guess I should be grateful that’s all my girl wanted to do with a pole. My students trust me. It’s probably a good sign that exotic dancer only hit the list as a brief note that sounded like a joke.

In the last week or two, we have added six new special education students. We have added regular students, too. To our knowledge, none of these students represent military transfers. The military tends to allow its parents to finish out school years before transfers. We are a relatively small school.

Who are these parents? What are they thinking? One speculation in the teacher’s lounge intrigued me. At least locally, families tend to know that my district does not retain students and I am sure the news has spread that we are not retaining students this year. Faced with a child’s being held back, some families might opt to move into a district where their child does not have to repeat any grades.

Some of these transfers came from some distance away, though. They are not part of the revolving door of student moves between our suburb and nearby suburbs to the North who regularly exchange students with us. These moves are mysteries.

Frequently, late-arriving students are disruptive. The family may be changing schools specifically because of behavior problems. We lost one girl from my classes this year after she ran away with gang friends, causing her family to decide to separate her from her local peer group. Even new students who were not sources of trouble in their previous districts may become challenges when suddenly plunged into a new school, away from old friends and families. New students are often angry at their loss. They act out to attract the attention of possible new friends. They may also find themselves hopelessly confused academically — especially if sudden school moves are part of a family pattern.

Eduhonesty: This shifting of student sands does not occur where I live, not in the same order of magnitude anyway. The parents in this middle-class suburb tend to finish out school years before changing locations. If dad or mom is transferred, the remaining parent will often stay behind until June before reuniting the family. To maintain two households requires money, however. Where I work, the only way “Jamie” may get to stay in her school will probably be an aunt or relative who lives in district. When we compare America’s school districts, this higher mobility in financially-disadvantaged areas only rarely hits the radar. That mobility can have a significant impact on learning and test scores, however. The special education classes in my school are struggling to absorb new students now, at a time when we are supposed to be getting ready for end of year tests. How these new kids will do on tests is anybody’s guess at the moment.

Soon, I’ll be able to attempt some estimate of a final tally. I’m pretty sure nearly one-tenth of my year has been sacrificed to standardized testing or testing created by outsiders based on a curriculum that matches none of my student’s actual learning levels. Test after incomprehensible test, I hacked away at my students’ self-esteem.* They failed. We met at McDonalds on Saturdays and they retook tests. They retook tests after school and before school. Tests, tests, tests. Retake by retake, a number of them worked to salvage grades. Others did not, however. Others just took their punches and went down without a fight.

The year is ending and I echo the sentiment of a great man from America’s past:

Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Chief Joseph

According to the Chairman of the Bilingual Department in my school, 27 of the district’s 34 bilingual teachers will be leaving, voluntarily or involuntarily, at the end of this year. That’s essentially 80% of the total. My district will probably be forced to hire any bilingual candidate who walks in the door this summer. Given that we are a lower-paying, understaffed, high-stress district, the odds that next year’s bilingual staff will be as good as this year’s staff are maybe better than that snowballs chance in hell, but I’d put my money on the snowball.

Eduhonesty: But did district administration do anything to keep their bilingual staff? If so, I sure missed those efforts. The Chairman and I laughed over our good fortune — her new job and my retirement. I still love my students. I still love teaching. But I am relieved to join the exodus. Administrative, testing, and data demands have become absurd.