Is there an insane emphasis on testing at your child's school?

[EMom]

I'm in Texas and would love to choke the people responsible for the TAKS test. DD's school is obsessed with it. Forget teaching them their multiplication tables that they rushed through in 3rd grade in order to cover other TAKS material.....let's make sure they know geometry in 4th grade because that's on the TAKS test. Really? Geometry? DD seems to be taught a mish mash of various unrelated information and I can assure you, every aspect has a TAKS objective which matches it. Forget teaching basic math which can be built on, basic English and reading skills that will serve them well forever, making sense of social studies or making science fun. NOPE! It's TAKS all the time.

Don't get me wrong....DD does amazingly well on the TAKS tests. But I still think they are a load of crap. I'd hate to go back to teaching because I'd be forced to teach that baloney. Her school is on "lockdown" this week since the older kids are taking a TAKS test. No parent visits, etc. NOTHING must endanger those precious TAKS scores. Heaven forbid you should even fart as you drive past the school.

I'd love for them to teach....just not teach to the test. But the teachers are between a rock and a hard place.

 

[bellebud]

Heaven forbid you should even fart as you drive past the school.

 

[stm61]

I'm also in SC and I absolutely hate testing! Our district not only tests 2nd thru 8th graders with PASS tests, they decided a few years ago to torment the kids even more by doing end-of-quarter testing every nine weeks. Even the 5K kids test and they make the 4K's do something to get them ready to test in 5K. We can teach nothing that is not on PASS, in high school it all revolves around whatever they're calling the exit exam they start taking in 10th grade. We're given pacing guides at the start of every school year and God help the teacher who is not where they're supposed to be according to the guides. Kids haven't gotten the concept and you want to review? Tough, the guide says move on! I teach self-contained EMD, most of the kids are really TMD but are high functioning socially. It took 2 years to convince the powers that be that my kids were NOT going to score well on PASS, no matter what they threatened them with! This year they finally let them take the SC-ALT, which is another story altogether. We lose a week every quarter to review for EOQ testing, another 4 days to take the tests, every morning the regular ed teachers fo intervention for PASS, and they wonder why the kids don't know anything about current events!

 

[Jimbo47]

YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every 2 months, we take our practice tests, the 4-Sights. We also have "Pathways", which prepare you for the state test, the PSSAs. You answer 5 questions and if you get 2 or more wrong, you get sent to pathways for reading or math. It's a 15 minute review and answer of the questions.

PSSAs are the whole month of April, day in and day out. Lovely.

Ugh the 4-Sights. Worst things ever. They don't even count towards you or anything. Teachers grade you just for completing it.

Started the PSSA's today. The way they word some of the questions (especially the open ended) is horrible. I had to read one of the open ended for math 10 times until I finally understood the question. They also just introduced a science PSSA test last year. Average scores for my district: around 55%. They don't count at all for us, because they are still in what I guess could be called "A Test Run."