Dear Pointy Headed Intellectual What Were You Thinking

I'd like to take a brief moment to mention that at no point in my twenty seven blog posts have I mentioned the name of my school or the name of the school system.  That is intentional as this blog is not about discrediting any school or school system but is just about the every day events that I see from my view at the back of the room.  So if you know me personally and want to pass along my blog URL feel free to do so but please avoid telling others where I work.

Dear pointy headed intellectual please explain to me why and the hell does ISTEP testing continue to exist?  During the week of May 5th our scholars will take the last of the ISTEP tests.  When the testing is complete I will have two years of ISTEP testing under my belt.  Yes I know that is not very much but it is enough for me to say what I'm about to say.  I eat lunch at 1:00pm and share a staff lounge with two teachers.  Over the past two years over one hundred scholars have passed through their classrooms.  Today I asked them how many parental units expressed any interest in ISTEP testing at the beginning of the testing process.  Their response zero.  I then asked them how many parental units expressed any interest in ISTEP testing at the end of the process.  Their response zero.  My final question was how many parental units contacted you to discuss their scholars ISTEP test results.  None.  Prior to the start of ISTEP a lot of time and money was spent sending communications home to the parental units.  Please be sure your scholar gets plenty of sleep.  Please be sure your scholar has a good breakfast before coming to school.  Please encourage you scholar to do her/his best when taking the test. All of that time, effort and money and not one of the parental units showed any interest in ISTEP.  So I ask you again why and the hell are are we doing ISTEP testing?

Remediation is the fancy word used to describe the process to help the scholars that fail ISTEP.  The bottom line is that the scholar failed the test and needs help getting caught up.  The first round of ISTEP testing took place just before spring break so there is time for remediation.  The challenge is finding the time to do it.  Should the teacher inform the parental unit that they have to either bring their scholar early to school or pick them up later after school so they can get remediation is the question.  When you take into consideration that the parental unit showed no interest in the testing process in the first place will they choose either of these options?  No!  So that means remediation needs to take place during the regular school day.  In order to do this the teacher has to introduce new material to those scholars that passed ISTEP and review old material for those scholars that failed ISTEP.  So how is the teacher going to do two things at once?  They can't which means the teacher is in a lose/lose situation.  If the teach spends too much time introducing new material to the twenty or more scholars that passed ISTEP the one or two that didn't fall farther behind.  If the teacher spends too much time with remediation for one or two scholars then the twenty or more scholars that are supposed to be learning new material are not.  So in this lose/lose situation you know what will likely happen?  More scholars will fail ISTEP.  And when more scholars fail ISTEP some fathead from the local media will write another story about teachers and why are there so few rated ineffective when so many scholars are failing ISTEP.  So I'll ask the question again.  Dear pointy headed intellectual why and the hell does ISTEP testing continue to exist?

As I mentioned at the start we are in the final phase of  ISTEP testing and BaseG and I know right now some if not all of our scholars will need remediation.  The sad part, no not the sad part but the totally stupid part is that the ISTEP results will not be available until after the school year ends.  So when will remediation start?  Well off course at the start of the next school year when the scholars are in the next grade with a new teacher.  If you believe that then I'm going to offer you a chance to buy the Brooklyn Bridge for a really swell price.

As a reminder I have no hidden agenda.  I'm not a teacher.  I'm not a part of school administration. I'm not a member of a union.  And I sure as hell am not a politician.  All I am is a guy with a view from the back of a classroom who is wondering why we are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars  if not millions of dollars on a test that accomplishes nothing.