My students last year were victims of attempts to standardize education to meet test targets. In my case, we are talking about groups of bilingual students, but the special education teacher across the hall was required to give exactly the same East Coast tests and related, team-created quizzes. All mathematics classes in the seventh grade were administering those same tests and quizzes at about the same time, or at most a day or two late.
To meet Common Core expectations, my Deputy Superintendent had bought us a shiny new book that my students mostly could not read. (Actually, I don’t believe a single one of them could read that book.) The book he chose was not the book that his own committee of math teachers had recommended, but he liked it’s “rigor,” so he overrode the committee members’ votes, despite the book being pitched years above the average student reading level in his school. Meanwhile, my Assistant Principal kept wandering into my classroom and finding reasons to dampen my enthusiasm for the day.
I am reminded of that great song stanza sung by Groucho Marx in the film “Horsefeathers,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5takWU.
I don’t know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
No matter what it is
Or who commenced it
I’m against it!
Whatever I was doing, he could be counted upon to complain. When my students had not been given the same opening activity as the one-size-fits-all, 7th-grade lesson plan, he complained. When I explained they did not know that math, he trotted out his standard line: “No excuses.”
Whatever it was, he was against it. Whatever I said, he came back, “No excuses.” Many U.S. charter schools typically use the “No Excuses” approach. “No Excuses” charter schools have demonstrated significant improvement in math scores and reading scores, so the adoption of this approach could be understood, except for the fact that the inability to do a certain mathematical procedure is relevant when deciding whether or not to use that procedure as an opening, independent activity. Teachers use short, opening activities during the first few minutes of class to get students settled while they take attendance and deal with administrative matters.
For that matter, the ability to read a test’s questions truly should be considered a relevant consideration when deciding to administer that test. I believe students should be able to read the tests they receive, but my Assistant Principal did not seem to agree. He also got upset if students could not explain how to do the math they could not do, even when those students were testing at a first grade level in English language learning.
I have had a wild ride out here for the last decade as I tried to keep up with new data requirements, new educational fashions, burgeoning meetings, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Response to Intervention (RtI), Race to the Top, the Common Core, PARCC, Rising Star, Type 3 evaluations, the Charlotte Danielson Rubric, the firing of my district’s school board by the state and the mandatory replacement of my school’s administration as part of a School Improvement Grant (SIG).
Eduhonesty: So glad to have a nice, half day of subbing planned for tomorrow afternoon. I so hope to never see that Assistant Principal’s face again. I’ll extend my sympathies to the staff in his new school district — apparently he left early during this school year — and so glad not to have to attend meetings, often multiple meetings, for all five days of the week.
P.S. Feeling like taking a wacky journey into the past? How about an episode of Dick Cavett with Groucho Marx as a guest? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VckmK-ZCpAU&ebc=ANyPxKowJJs52WnXEn1PvVTbhbxEG4FeDjkYJFZCAzlX-GairhMVMbtYE8g8zYm6aVAHGHRgHUQBgSnz61V18XJIpM2nsyi8eg