Subbing in the land of free breakfasts and lunches, I accept a day’s work giving a benchmark test, AIMSWeb, in Spanish. Little children endlessly read at me all day, I mark mistakes and my life’s easy. For more on benchmark tests, go to my preceding post at eduhonesty.com.

An issue that ought to capture America’s attention is hidden behind that red sign on the door above. The sign tells students and others that the library is closed for MAP testing. That’s not strictly accurate because this latest round of MAP testing has finished. Now we have moved on to AIMSWEB. Next, we will do ACCESS testing. When will the library reopen? It should be open for a few days before we enter the ACCESS testing window.

But the library is closed. This district and this school does not have enough technology to keep the library going during testing. So here in a school whose subterranean test scores put it in the bottom of the nation’s schools, that classroom trip to the school library keeps not happening. Other volunteers with local reading programs are picking up some of the slack, but these kids desperately need to spend minutes looking through library shelves for the perfect book. They need to become enthusiastic about books — real books. Few if any of these kids have Kindles. They tend to play games when they can somehow get on line. Every reading experience is a win for America’s most academically-challenged kids.

But the library is closed and will mostly remain so until sometime a few weeks into February. These tests are not done for the year, either. MAP and AIMSWeb should return. We have to get our end of the year test scores. Oh, and there’s a big, hulking state test that takes days and days somewhere in the spring picture too.  With more technology, the test could go faster, but poor districts often test in groups, class after class, because students cannot all go online at once — not enough tech and not enough tech support.

Eduhonesty: No library. No laptops either. Week after week, this will go on and kids will suffer. One fact that gets missed in this mess: This financially-impoverished district may have to shut down a variety of services, but the wealthy district where I live does not have to do the same. Where I live, they have an abundance of technology. Kids have been getting IPads to take home for years. Testing will still be disruptive in wealthier districts, but because these districts have more staff and more computers, testing causes much less disruption to learning.

Here we go again: Kicking the kids hardest who are already down.

Hello out here from Retired and Subbing Land!

Nonteacher readers may benefit from a little clarification here. Benchmark tests are evaluation tests given multiple times throughout the school year; used to determine whether or not students are managing to meet previously defined academic standards, these tests can provide information to help individualize instruction. MAP® and AIMSWEB® are benchmark tests. ACCESS® is a test of English-language proficiency given once a year. ACCESS testing determines whether or not a student will stay in bilingual programs* and provides information about that student’s rate of English-language learning.

Now on with my latest testing-related post!

I got a text message this morning from a reading teacher telling me that I am on the calendar for next week to give AIMSWEB benchmark tests for her district. They needed a Spanish speaker to give the Spanish-language version. This should be an easy day for me, as I read tests to little kids from kindergarten up through third grade.

I know the students. I have been filling in for their ELL resource teacher, who has been out of the country dealing with family issues. Perhaps I should say I have been “sort of filling in.” I taught furiously, don’t get me wrong. But much of her program is located on computers that were unavailable for about half my stay — because the whole school was taking MAP benchmark tests. MAP sucked up the available computers. I rummaged in that back storage place where unused books go to hide — I think all schools have one — and found some fun print material to work with. (The kids especially enjoyed The Great Gracie Chase.) This school should finish its MAP testing sometime next week.

Once MAP is done, the school will hurtle into AIMSWEB it seems. Every child will take AIMSWEB just as every child took the MAP test. A few kids in special education may be exempt, but that’s it. We will have barely finished AIMSWEB before we enter the ACCESS testing window. In this district, the ACCESS test is given on computers. I expect technology use will freeze to another halt for a week or two as the district jockeys to get all its ACCESS testing done. The district has already asked if I will help with high school testing. ACCESS takes a long time. For one thing, the kindergarten tests are given on an individual basis.

Eduhonesty: We have only 36 weeks in a school year. Nobody needs this much data, not when you consider the insane amount of instructional time being lost.

Please share this post. I consider this time loss unconscionable — no matter how good the intentions of the district. Those AIMSWEB and MAP Tests are frequently given three times during one school year. I have not even touched on the days used for the annual state test, and have only sideswiped the issue of lost access to technology in a financially- and technologically-disadvantaged district.

Help!

*Placement in bilingual programs is actually a bit more complicated than that — parents can always withdraw students, and not all states follow the same programs.