As soon as Gnu said it I quickly responded that will not happen so stop thinking that way. When she continued and said they will not pass the test I responded I know that. Up to this point I remained seated. To put some emphasis on what I was about to say I stood up and was moving toward her. Listen to me if for no other reason than the fact that I've been in this room for three years plus I'm old enough to be your grandfather. You are the third teacher that I've work with in the last three school years and the daily lesson plans you put together to help these very challenging scholars get the best education possible has been truly impressive. There is not a week that goes by that I don't tell someone what a wonderful job you are doing so any further concern about tests stops now.
Dear politician and pointy headed intellectual the nonsense that develops in that cavity between your ears and eventually turns into a law or education policy in the state of Indiana is really irritating classroom teachers and in the worse case is driving talented teachers out of the teaching profession. If you sense that I have an attitude you are right. Although I've said this before it's been a while so I'll say it again. I do not have a teaching degree, I do not have a teaching license, I am not a member of a union, I am not a pointy headed intellectual and I sure as hell am not a politician. All I am is a gray haired wrinkly faced old guy that has a view from the back of a classroom and I don't like what I see when it comes to education policy. Now that I have that off my chest I'll continue.
Gnu has been preparing for a case conference with Yo!'s parental units for several days now. There is a fair amount of paperwork that needs to be completed and quite honesty the colleagues that she works with have not been timely in getting her the information she needs to finalize the paperwork. That has been pretty frustrating for her as she is preparing to participate in a conference like this for the first time and she wants everything to go smoothly. It's also been an interesting process for me to watch as I know what pieces of information she is missing and you'd think this information would be readily available. From my observations, the information on acquity and dibles tes results is readily available for the general education population but apparently the same information for special education students tends to get misplaced. Why that happens is an unknown but all I know is that Gnu needs this information quickly so she can finalize the paperwork for this case conference.
Finally, after many attempt to get the information the test scores arrived on Thursday, January 22, 2015. I'm sitting at my desk and the scholars have not arrived when Gnu states "I'm going to get fired over these scores." I respond, "what are you talking about?" She said "the ISTEP scores from previous tests for our scholars are really bad and no one was even close to passing the tests." I respond that "I know about the test scores and you are not going to get fired." Rather than repeat myself you can read the first paragraph again if you want.
As a reminder, this is Gnu's first year in the classroom so she has had no role at all with these test scores. In actuality, the only adult in the classroom this year that had a role in these failing tests scores is me. Fortunately for me, instructional assistants are not held accountable for test scores as they are not the teacher. With this in mind, I going to let you in on a secret so don't tell anyone or I could lose my job. On any given day I am a teacher about forty percent of the time. When you work in a classroom with scholars in four different grade levels it is not possible for one individual to teach all these scholars. So every day I'm assigned to a group of scholars and I teach the lesson. Apparently, based on last years ISTEP and IRead3 test scores I haven't been doing a very good job teaching.
This whole conversation started because Gnu needed Yo!'s ISTEP scores to finalize the paperwork so she could be prepared for the upcoming case conference. It was yet another frustrating time for a first year teacher and it concerns me a great deal because in a couple months Gnu will have to make a decision on whether to return to our school next year or move on. Right now I'm sure if she'll return.
A simple request for an ISTEP score should not have turned into a major ordeal but it did. Reviewing a scholar's ISTEP score for the very first time should not cause a teacher to say "I'm going to get fired over these score" but it did. There have been many times when I marveled at the effort put in by my teaching colleagues and I'm proud to work where I do. There are times like you just read about that make me wonder why anyone in their right mind enter the teaching profession.
I'll let you know how the case conference works out. Thanks for your return visit to my blog.
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