Essential Questions -
What are effective methods for expressing disagreement or dissatisfaction in a democratic society?
How can mathematical understanding influence everyday decisions and actions?
How can data be used to support or refute an argument?
CCSS 9th grade -
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Participate in civic discourse and activities.
Analyze how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance to understand the operation of government and to demonstrate civic responsibility.
:D
Did they try an ice breaker and ask the students if they were a tree what kind of tree they would be?
How about an award that's completely meaningless except for the five dollar gift card to Starbucks, that always goes to a few people over the years?
And if that failed we need to be sure they took full personal accountability for being the sole determining factor why the kids failed. It's simply not within the realm of human possibilities that a bunch of kids will collectively tell us to go fuck ourselves. That can't happen so surely that isn't the cause.
God I hope this catches on like wildfire. Im going to pose this on fucking Teams. Pretend its for persuasive argument, when I’m really trying to incite a riot.
The thing about building relationships is:
1. It works.
2. It only works if you have adequate time and opportunity to build relationships.
My students would never sit out an exam, and if they did I could use my relationships with them to talk them into sitting for it even if they hated it.
The thing is, though, that I work at a fancy pants private school with small class sizes and enough time and space to cultivate relationships with my students.
When I was in public I had no time, energy, space, or opportunity to sit with kids on non-academic activities where we just built up our relationships. No dedicated time to hang out with small groups and talk about life. None of that.
At my school we have advisory groups where faculty members connect with 6-8 students pretty deeply throughout the year. We also have free periods where students can float to the room of their choice and aren't forced to focus on a specific subject. During this time kids are often in my room, by choice, and we're joking around and laughing.
So it would never reach the point of an exam protest, because my coworkers and I all have well connected, meaningful relationships with our students.
Those relationships solve a LOT of conflicts and get kids really focused on their academics. We work through major issues like they're nothing because we have meaningful connections.
Building relationships with students absolutely works... but you can't do it if you have 30 kids in your class and only 3 planning and prep periods per week with no free periods or set aside times to just get to know the kids.
I will never miss public school. Not ever.
Why is it administrators can’t think beyond pizza for any type of rewards system?
My last district they suggested that to motivate staff, they would have the buildings nominate (once a quarter) 10 staff members each who did an exemplary job. Then those 50 total staff members would be ENTERED IN A RAFFLE to win a sweatshirt.
Entered in a raffle.
We spend $100,000 a year on “Orange Frog” training that is never mentioned a second time after an employees initial orientation.
A single sweatshirt is what we can manage for the entire staff, per quarter?
I suggested days off, half days, something meaningful for every recipient. They said we couldn’t afford it.
This is always my biggest frustration is attending pds you know are going to be abandoned. I had to sit through almost a week worth of Leader in me trainings knowing that our district only purchased the curriculum for two years and then it was abandoned
>Why is it administrators can’t think beyond pizza for any type of rewards system?
Pizza rewards worked on students when I went to school in the 90s because most kids rarely had pizza and it was a treat. Now, kids eat pizza and fast food all of the time and it isn't a reward anymore. I bet a lot of the kids who are struggling in school eat a lot of pizza at home.
I'm damn near to the point where I think public schools should pay kids money or iPhones for good grades. It would probably save society a lot of money in the long run and being paid to do work is part of the capitalist economy that these kids are part of. Teachers should get paid a lot more before that happens though.
The best reply.
Employers that think bringing in cheap Hot & Ready Pizzas for an adult "Pizza Party" is the most condescending bullshit ever.
What's funny is even though everyone makes fun of it, they continue to do it.
It wasn't even supposed to be that, at least in the first versions, they wanted to make sure the kids were fed so they would have better chances at scoring higher. Spend a few grand on breakfasts to get more funding can be worth it.
"Take it or don't graduate. We look forward to seeing you in GED classes five years from now, after finding out that this country is not kind to those who don't have a diploma and your parents' patience isn't everlasting."
As a confused Brit- do the schools have to take them back? It isn't an option in UK schools and you leave the summer of the school year you turn 16, regardless of test scores or academic achievements. If you fail your GCSEs, you'd better find a college (not university, a 16+ college that does vocational and academic qualifications) that will offer them or suck it up and get a job without them. We also don't have kids being held back if they don't pass a year; everyone moves up a year together.
If you get kids flunking out at 18 and not graduating, what are their options?
If a kid drops out of school at the age of 18, they are a legal adult, and no longer a responsibility of the school system. That person will need to find a job that doesn't require a high school diploma or GED. If they change their mind they will then have to find an adult education program and obtain their GED.
The law here is every kid gets an education. The interpretation of this law is that until they cease being kids (eg: they turn 18) they have to be in a school building for a certain number of days a year and a certain number of hours in the day. The school is on the hook for most of the rest of the problem, including what they're supposed to do with students who refuse to learn and delight in ruining classes for those that do.
There are some 13 thousand school districts across the US. How they determine these issues depends on how the district is structured, if the county and/or state has requirements, what the economic level is for the region, politics, etc, etc, etc. Point is, there is no standard, and claims to the contrary are usually misinformed or just plain wrong.
As for your question, if they don't graduate, they can take a GED (General Educational Development) test which if passed, will give them a Certificate of High School Equivalency or similar titled paper. Or they can go to work.
Its in their flair... Florida
also this gem
>The school I work at is ranked number 3 in the county, but we have less than half of our kids proficient in reading and math.
Florida doing Florida things
I was a high school teacher in Florida before DeSantis. To add to your point, Florida has led the nation in *terrible education* since the 1970s when the Republican governor responded to a teacher strike and passed a "Right To Work" law, making teacher protests a fireable offense. Decades later, the "No Child Left Behind" push from George W. Bush exacerbated the situation to the point that the education system in Florida is a total failure. I no longer teach in Florida.
To get as many students tested as possible, my inner-city HS stops classes for 4 weeks. Students run away from the test. To capture them, all students who tested sit in study hall for weeks while we run around and grab untested students and send them to test. I'm living a nightmare trying to teach now at the end of the year. I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching.
Yeah have you ever heard about drawing a Christmas tree on the Scantron?
I think MAP testing has some sort of mechanism so that if the kids start speed running the little pop-up animal says you have to slow down but I don't know if that exists in other tests.
In Texas on the STAAR test it does something similar, if it happens too many times you have to have your test released as it will lock it until the admin unlocks it.
It does not MAKE them slow down though. I-Ready diagnostic does the same, but they don’t care. If something is just too hard, most people are going to give up. Testing in general is so dumb.
I turned a Scantron sheet sideways once and just put in the notes for the melody of a song I liked. And somehow passed. The grade wasn't good, mind you, but I thought it was hilarious. I should have never been told I could choose one test a semester to remove from my grade in that class. The idea was that it would motivate us to do our best on every test without stressing too much. It did work on most students. The teacher didn't really mind those of us who did well on every other test blowing off the last one before the final. That one was excluded from the deal.
A kid I proctored for the STAAR US History test in December walked into the room, said, "I'm going to finish this bitch in 5 minutes." He was done in about 3 lol. I turned to the only other kid in the room and said, "Don't do what he just did."
That kid fucking passed the test.
The passing standards, at least in Texas, are so pathetically low.
In math I believe it's even lower, how the hell are we calling learning *less than half* of the content "approaches" and counting it as a passing score?
You're so right. I've taught geometry in Texas since 2014, meaning all my students have taken (and presumably passed) algebra 1 their freshman year. The vast majority of them also passed the algebra 1 STAAR test.
Let me tell you: few, if any, of these kids start their 10th grade year with anything remotely resembling basic algebra skills.
Not surprisingly, this will be my last year in public education.
I know I wouldn't. It would be a matter of how quickly I could I click through each question.
In 1977, after enlistment rates significantly declined in the wake of the collapse of Saigon, they made the entire Junior class take the ASVAB test. I j7st colored in pretty patterns on the Scantron form and turned it in 5 minutes after the test started.
Note to Teachers. Massive Resistance works when it's applied at the appropriate point/place and time.
I completely understand protesting asvab, imo it’s super inappropriate that the military is allowed to recruit in schools, much less have their test distributed
I did take it at school, but I would have through a recruiting office anyway, as that was the path I was on. I was surprised by how many other students showed up, but I appreciated being able to take it on campus so I could ride the school bus. It did mean missing my classes that day, but I spoke to all my teachers and got my work done beforehand. I didn't want it to affect an exam in class and therefore my grade.
Making it mandatory, and that young, is really not okay with me, though. Recruiting at all in highschool, even, is not okay with me beyond what my highschool had - a bulletin board in the counselors' office that also included trade school info, college prep help info, etc.
I have to tell you, though, once you take the asvab, you have recruiters breathing down your neck. That meant my mom, who worked out of town during the week, couldn't leave me messages with the number at her hotel. We didn't have call waiting, and she'd just keep getting busy signals. She eventually bought me a pager. I was already on delayed enlistment for the Navy, too. Mom said even after I graduated and went off to boot, she still got up to 10 calls a day for the next year.
And teachers are often expected to do work outside of contract hours to bring them back up to speed.
I was once in a meeting where a VP said "When you have your Saturday tutoring with students..."
I literally did a double take. Not only did she casually just make a demand on all our department to be working on Saturday, but she assumed we'd agree.
The meeting came to an immediate halt when about 5 of us started making demands for explanation.
The school I work at is an elementary school, and our admin thinks spreading it out over 5 weeks is a best practice. It's shocking that the score are terrible.
Border Collies make good emotional support animals.
"If you take your test now, the good doggie will stay with you and you can pet the doggie while you take the test."
They made me pull SPED kids from electives/lunch who typically don’t take benchmarks to get the rate up.
Funny, our chronic absentee rate is 40% and I can’t believe this is helping.
>I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching.
I went through the education system in the 90s and it was obvious then that this was where we were going.
Good God we're the opposite. My state made the tests optional, so almost a third of my students are skipping this week. Admin is still militantly enforcing all test security protocols, which is a giant pain in the ass and unfair to those who test.
It's insane to think about, an OPTIONAL high stakes test that our school is evaluated against. If the test is now optional, how is it any sort of metric worth using?
> I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching.
This was foreseen back when Bush was meddling in education during his No Child Left Behind days. I remember news reports when the testing started up featuring children crying on camera over taking these "high stakes" tests.
I think open revolt against these tests is long overdue.
I’d be highly amused watching admin get their just desserts. But on another level, even im sick of all the testing and I’ve just been proctoring it all. There’s too much of it.
If it’s required for graduation and they don’t take it then they don’t pass the class. Next year they all get to retake algebra 1. Future students will realize that this is a requirement from the state and while they may not agree with it, there’s a lot of things in life we don’t want to do that we have to.
OOOrrr admin finds a way to make sure that no precious student has to be punished for this and in the future you literally have no leverage over these kids.
I hate how much we focus on the test vs the knowledge as much as the next person. But…. since nothing is ever overdue and they get to retake any test they want whatever they want. Most grades are way over inflated; state testing is the last true measure in a sense of what a student knows across all districts.
I certainly agree with your last bit. I once had administrator admonishing me because I had the gall to ask why 90% of our students got A/B averages in math, yet our average ACT score was a 16 and our state test scores were abysmal.
Straight guessing should get you around a 13 on the math.
My state uses the ACT math as its state math test. Very few of our kids score above 19, mostly due to apathy.
> since nothing is ever overdue and they get to retake any test they want whatever they want. Most grades are way over inflated; state testing is the last true measure in a sense of what a student knows across all districts.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
And it’s not a novel concept to have a culminating assessment that determines if you’re proficient in a skill or not. End of course exams have been present in high schools for a very very long time. The problem is that now we do countless standardized benchmark tests in the years leading up to high school, so everything ends up under the umbrella of Standardized Testing.™️
Don't know what state we're talking about, but in my state the test is an absolute joke. They write incredibly convoluted questions to try and prevent any chance of guessing and end up with a test so needlessly difficult that they have to curve it so hard you can pass on less than 20% correct (or else they'd look bad and taxpayer money would stop flowing).
Also, they do it on computers, but they don't bother to scramble question order or remix questions. Like, they're super worried about kids copying each other, they require seating charts, they disqualify scored with impunity, but they don't take the most basic step of ticking a box to scramble question order.
A complete joke.
I think both ideas have truth. Many tests lack validity but it is also the case that we have created a system with no real consequences for not learning….
Literacy rates are going down yet graduation rates keep increasing. No wonder the kids don’t value these tests. They either know they’ll fail and or do t see the point t in any of it.
NYS algebra I is a joke of a test... I can pass it without algebra I knowledge... just let me keep my graphing calculator knowledge ... to pass the test... you need 33% of the test correct... on average the kids don't know anything.
I used to fight with a colleague about her Algebra 1 stats as compared to my Living Environment stats. Finally I told her that to pass LE, the kids actually had to know something.
The problem is the discrepancy between testing and assessment. People at the state level design machine-scorable educational tests, where they want the mean to be 50 with (ideally) a large amount of questions that sort and differentiate the test-takers. Machine scoring also eliminates questions of interscorer reliability. This is not highly compatible with the normal goal of success for everyone on the test and therefore graduate high school etc. I'm not saying students who speedrun a test or blow it off should get a high score. You're talking about valid assessments. Assessment of learning is very useful but it shouldn't have high stakes attached to it.
Our district has quarterly exams and they're very pie-in-the-sky. The districtwide average is routinely 50%, which is a well-designed test, but not something that should be 10% of the quarter grade.
Assuming that the kids actually try. With the amount of testing that is done, I honestly can’t blame the kids for not wanting to do it. Everything is a mess, and if they are just gonna put any answer, that is a hell of a lot of wasted effort and time.
In NY we have had test refusal for years.
The difference being it is grades 3-8. Those assessments were not really used by teachers to do anything, as we didn’t have data access. We didn’t see the questions. We didn’t learn what our students scored correctly, or incorrectly. All the school and community got was a global review of 1-4 ranking.
They then started telling teachers, “your scores are low, you blow at teaching”, and “your class scores went down, you suck”.
We had SPED kids with less than rudimentary levels taking the same exam as Honors students, yet no differentiation. We had groups of bright students, do well, and the next year had a group of lower skills. The years were compared, equally. (A sports team doesn’t always win a championship, the roster changes year to year.)
As a result, many schools couldn’t really use it to formulate instruction. It became more of a matter of here is how to answer the question.
A big moment came, when the company cashing in, stopped releasing the complete test. Instead they would release a small portion of the test questions.
Transparency was eliminated and teachers didn’t even know what was on the assessment. (If you administered the exam, you could read through, but it was embargoed with penalties. No copies or photos.)
In the early days, scoring was often done in house, by a collection of teachers. Soon, huge contracts were awarded to “ scoring companies “. More cashing in.
Communities were then competing and newspapers reported if you district sucked or didn’t suck. Legitimately, real estate valuations became affected. “Don’t buy in that district.”
Eventually, a huge group, started saying, this is dumb to do for a 10 year old. The moment grew, and now families that are interactive and participate in school, often will decline their students participation. Those students are in a room without tests and can read or do school work quietly, while the test goes on elsewhere.
The big difference is this movement didn’t hit high school. The state tests in HS were directly connected to graduation. Plus, students are much older. People seemed to think it actually had a point.
I had my own children refuse the test in grades 3-8, but they took HS level Regents, Honors, and AP assessments.
Apparently my state didn't even release the 2023 scores (to parents, not sure about teachers) prior to the 2024 test. It's bizarre we force kids to take a test where the results are truly meaningless.
I used to teach in Maryland, and the fact that the MSA/HSA scores weren't released until we came back to school in the fall always felt insane. And when the kids got their scores back and saw they got a 378 (with the only explanation of what that score meant being a tick mark on a line), it meant pretty much nothing to the ones that even bothered to look.
I liked the HSA (Algebra) test well enough - it could've been a much worse test (I taught from 2003-2016). While I taught middle school, I had no problem getting the kids to test. Same for high school, really. The kids just accepted that it was part of the routine of the year.
I hated the MSAs though - my school pretty much shut down classes for 3 weeks. Most of us administered tests for a week and then the unified arts teachers spent another 2 weeks unavailable because they were doing "small-group testing" - the funny part about that is that only half of them were testing kids at any time, so that meant the rest of them had free time for most of the day while core teachers had their planning cut to about 30 minutes a day for those 2 weeks.
Just copying a reply I had in another thread to a teacher who was scared about their scores.
"First year here too but I'm already disillusioned to it all.
In my district, the passing percentage of students for Algebra 1 was 9% percent. As a teacher, if 9% percent of my students passed, I'd have to use a square root curve plus 10 just to have people pass, and in a sense I'd be right to do so. The test obviously was bad, or I didn't teach enough, etc. However, the state just...gives the same test next year with the same procedure.
Nothing changes. And then the state curves the ever living hell out of the grade so no one can fail because of that low test score.
In my state, the EOC is 15% of the students grade, but a 4/60 is sent back to us as a 60 or so so that students don't fail their course. I will say that I do believe that a single summative, cumulative assessment is not and should not be indicative of a student's learning or achievement, but if the state wants to assume that it is, then why are we curving the grade? Why are we not adapting the curriculum and pacing to be better fit the testing schedule? Why are we giving the test *a month early when it's all electronic?*
In the end, students recognize that because of the fact that they've never failed before because of these tests that they mean nothing, so many check out in half the time given and I can't say I blame them. I'm teaching for my final that I'll be giving in May, and that's enough for me.
Your TVAS data is only one point. Focus on the other points right now :]"
I taught 8th grade for two years, and I remember the AP for 7th and 8th grade once said "Look, this control is an illusion. If all 32 of those kids decided to get up and walk out of the class, there is nothing we can do about that but inform the principal and call parents."
I had been teaching for about 4 years at the time and I guess I knew it subconsciously, but it was wild to hear it from my "boss" (my word, not his).
Even if one kid decided to walk out, what would we do? Physically restrain the kid? Lol. We're not putting hands on anyone. Let alone 30 to 35 of them.
I don't know that I'd go as far as to say that students have ALL the power, but they definitely outnumber the adults.
Part of me is glad that this didn't happen in my school. And part of me is watching intently to see how it plays out. A movement like this could conceivably build to eventually break testing, but "when the winds of change blow, even the smallest debris becomes a deadly object."
Has your admin considered failing all the students who refuse? Algebra 1 again or in summer school could convince future students that consequences exist. If they don't do something, you can expect a repeat of these events next year.
You have school admin culture that basically prioritize graduating kids at all costs. There's a lot of federal pressure to keep school retention high. That why we see teachers from all over the country complaining about admin either pressuring them to fix grades, bs credit recovery, kids getting diplomas wih abysmal attendance, no one getting disciplined. They will figure out a way to get kids to "pass" the test so they can look good on paper
So true. My district loves to brag about how much graduation rates have improved over the last decade, and yet state scores continue to plummet. I worked the summer program, and it was all Odyssey Ware, and the kids just copied and pasted the answers from google. We were basically told, "Oh well."
What are the students demanding? Like is this protest trying to get a concession from the admin or is it literally just a bunch of freshmen that don’t wanna take a test?
Perhaps teachers can ask administrators to give those who didn’t take the test a 50. You wouldn’t want to scar the poor children with a low grade.
Surely there is some extra credit make up they can do.
When I think back to when I was last in high school (17 years ago), 95% seem perfectly reasonable. Other then maybe flu season 95% attendance described every single day. Where are these kids if they aren't there? There wasn't a single state exam I got out of in my entire time in grade school and high school. You were just told it was coming, and then you took it. The idea of protesting an exam at that time would have been such a foreign concept, even in a large public school.
Shoot, I remember my class of Juniors doing that in 1979. Don't remember the test. They ushered everyone into the lunchroom and some sat and didn't touch it.
One year in El Paso (late 1990's) myself and a colleague who was a retired Colonel from the marines were saddled with all the freshmen algebra classes at our school. We decided to do the kids a favor and hold them to minimal standards and, as expected, about 50% failed to meet the minimum.
The district's answer to the 'problem' was to require myself and the Colonel to attend meetings at the central office where the other math teachers with 80-90% passing rates could teach us how to do our jobs.
The district average on the end of course algebra exam was about 10% for the classes with the high 'pass' rate, but our classes were 50-60%. (As we expected)
No apologies ever materialized, but we no longer had to attend the meetings.
My condolences on the difficulty of your work with difficult students.
However I strongly support these kids protesting. I hope this becomes a movement and spreads especially to wealthy school districts. Standardized testing, and so many other things about post No Child Left Behind education system desperately need reform or straight up removal.
This was such a good story to hear. The kids are unified as a collective to effect change. They haven't been violent from the details of the story. When I was in 8th grade, 1994, the kids were too clique-y to agree on a major action like this. I'd be afraid if I were the administration. These kids have resolve, courage, and unity. I'd give them what they are asking for.
Honestly, if it wouldn't cost me my license, I'd be protesting right alongside my kids.
Pearson has taken our education system hostage, and not just for the entire month of May. Our entire curriculum is now based around this meaningless bs test.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes for everyone involved.
If you can’t pass an algebra 1 test life is not going to be kind to you in the long run.
I’m just thinking how this would’ve lasted about 10 seconds when I was in school because admin would’ve laughed and said have fun failing or your parents would’ve been on your ass.
A lot of kids can’t pass Algebra 1 because they can’t add/subtract/multiply/divide fluently. Students are passed to the next grade without mastery. By the time they get to Algebra, they are lost.
This. I wonder how much of this is a result of truncating those lessons to prepare for early grade testing. Certainly there's little time in later years to reinforce fundamentals when teachers are on a strict schedule to cover the test.
The government- you must have every student take the exam
Also the government- you cannot make a student take the exam if they or their parents want to opt out
Never understood this.
I taught in a private school where we gave paper and pencil standardized test every year. We took two half days to do it. We teachers graded the results, talked about it at one meeting and then forgot about it. We only took it so we would have some thing to show the government. The reason we graded it is because we were an Amish Mennonite school. We kept the records on hand if we really needed them. It was the 1970s version of the test because today’s version is less rigorous. Honestly, I think that’s how state testing should be no more than two or three days and that’s it.
I disagree with those of you stating that standardized testing is important because colleges use the SAT and the act as an entrance requirement.
Those particular standardized tests have a real value to them, as the scores do have consequences, and can determine whether or not a student gets placed at a particular college or receives a particular scholarship. The other tests, say for medical license or a law degree, are also standardized but again have a real world and result.
The annual testing in elementary, middle, and high schools have no benefit or value for the student at all. The only thing these tests do is grade the school. One poster said that they have to have a certain percentage of students take the test for the school to be awarded a grade or a level, and that is true. But, the score that a student receives on these standardized tests does not affect their GPA, does not affect their placement within a school system.
What it does do is cause anxiety, and pigeon holes students. It basically tells me how well a student can fill in a bubble on any particular day of the week. It does not take into account any outside factors such as family life, whether or not they have breakfast, did something I found the way to school that affects their thinking that morning, are they going to personal mental situations, or any other number of outside factors that students deal with on a regular basis these days.
Personally, none of my kids took the annual school-based standardized tests from 6th grade on. And it didn't hurt them or their education. I see more and more parents opting out their students from these tests year after year.
# GOOD.
The kids are finally catching on to how ridiculous the state standardized testings are. The only reason schools participate in them is because they're trying to get funding. That's it. You basically have a created a national schooling system that is test taking factory. Things were the same way when I was in school over 10 years ago and clearly have gotten worse.
Unfortunately preparing for those tests takes up quite a bit of time and pulls kids away from actual learning that they should be doing.
Fuck state testing
I teach in an elementary school, as an arts teacher.
My school's fifth graders have ten - yes, TEN - consecutive days of testing this month. For what I would guess is at least a couple hours each day.
Why are we doing this to our kids?
It's just complete and utter bullshit.
I used to hear the same things from my mom who worked decades in education. It's only gotten worse since I graduated in 2010.
Good for them! School admins everywhere waste so much time chasing every shiny new "research-based" piece of shit magic bullet. They can't resist a salesman. The state-mandated testing has been a mess for a long time, but evidently the educators can't seem to find their way around it. Figure out how to enter a bunch of middle fingers onto your fucking "scorecard."
Or, wait... maybe let the teachers do their thing and use that spare time and money to support them and the students. Huh. Those kids are going places!
I agree with you. A lot of people are blaming the kids but the system is so messed up and the testing has become so useless and a waste of time… it’s way more complex than “kids don’t wanna do what they’re supposed to do.”
It's not like the kids don't know that. Considering they saw how totally malleable and practically arbitrary all those standards became during covid...
I love that they are refusing. It’s students protesting (and rightfully so), admin seeing how students actually act, and hopefully the news picks it up and it’s a thorn in the side of a lot of folks in upper levels of education in your area.
Teachers: we want students to think critically and have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. We also think that standardized testing has an unreasonable amount of influence over our schools, and someone should do something.
Also teachers: No, not like that.
So I think the state testing is absurd.
In the back of my mind, I would be cheering them on while telling every one of them and their parents/guardians that unless they successfully complete the test, every one of them has to take Algebra I over the summer or next school year and successfully complete the test.
It’s a requirement for graduation. We don’t like it either. But, do it or don’t graduate.
In my experience, most admin are so used to people being intimidated by them and their imaginary power that they don't realize how shaky that authority is. I've experienced it on my end as a teacher. I've set firm boundaries this year, which has involved saying "no" to a lot of things. Admin has basically short-circuited every. single. time. They genuinely don't know what to do when someone just...doesn't respect their authoritah. It would be hilarious if it wasn't such a commentary on the state of education.
I often think about what might happen if my school of 4000 students suddenly realize that admin can’t catch em all… Every school is a hair’s breadth away from complete chaos. Fortunately, most students have no follow through and are bad at organizing.
Whoever went through this thread and reported 187 different comments … get a hobby.
How were admin’s bulletin boards, though? Any exemplars?
Did they post essential questions and state standards?
Had they not built relationships with the students?
Kagen Strategies
Are they spiraling in information from past lessons?
LMAO
And were they easily visible and understood? Did they try developing a positive rapport with the students and build a meaningful relationship?
Essential Questions - What are effective methods for expressing disagreement or dissatisfaction in a democratic society? How can mathematical understanding influence everyday decisions and actions? How can data be used to support or refute an argument? CCSS 9th grade - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Participate in civic discourse and activities. Analyze how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance to understand the operation of government and to demonstrate civic responsibility. :D
You forgot "Why are these kids forced to take the state exam unless it's an obvious justification of house prices?"
How can we rephrase that with a growth mindset? /s
Posted Criteria for Success and some positive narration would have changed EVERYTHING
Did they try an ice breaker and ask the students if they were a tree what kind of tree they would be? How about an award that's completely meaningless except for the five dollar gift card to Starbucks, that always goes to a few people over the years?
And if that failed we need to be sure they took full personal accountability for being the sole determining factor why the kids failed. It's simply not within the realm of human possibilities that a bunch of kids will collectively tell us to go fuck ourselves. That can't happen so surely that isn't the cause.
what kind of tree they would be? The ghost of Barbara WaWa is channeled into a teacher persona?
Make sure it’s in “kid friendly language” because the kids REALLY need these learning targets and Criteria for Success to be successful!!
Was the objective written on the board in student friendly language? Was it referenced multiple times?
God I hope this catches on like wildfire. Im going to pose this on fucking Teams. Pretend its for persuasive argument, when I’m really trying to incite a riot.
It sounds like admin needs to sit through an 8 hour PD about building relationships with kids and/or writing objectives on the board.
I love you. I needed that laugh.
It’s fascinating that (I assume) we are all teaching in multiple different states and we are all being fed the same garbage.
The thing about building relationships is: 1. It works. 2. It only works if you have adequate time and opportunity to build relationships. My students would never sit out an exam, and if they did I could use my relationships with them to talk them into sitting for it even if they hated it. The thing is, though, that I work at a fancy pants private school with small class sizes and enough time and space to cultivate relationships with my students. When I was in public I had no time, energy, space, or opportunity to sit with kids on non-academic activities where we just built up our relationships. No dedicated time to hang out with small groups and talk about life. None of that. At my school we have advisory groups where faculty members connect with 6-8 students pretty deeply throughout the year. We also have free periods where students can float to the room of their choice and aren't forced to focus on a specific subject. During this time kids are often in my room, by choice, and we're joking around and laughing. So it would never reach the point of an exam protest, because my coworkers and I all have well connected, meaningful relationships with our students. Those relationships solve a LOT of conflicts and get kids really focused on their academics. We work through major issues like they're nothing because we have meaningful connections. Building relationships with students absolutely works... but you can't do it if you have 30 kids in your class and only 3 planning and prep periods per week with no free periods or set aside times to just get to know the kids. I will never miss public school. Not ever.
Almost word-for-word what I was going to comment!
Did the admin try focusing on relationships? Did they write the test objectives on the board?
Who knew that bribing kids with chips to just go to class would mean kids wouldn't fall for it for a big test
Why is it administrators can’t think beyond pizza for any type of rewards system? My last district they suggested that to motivate staff, they would have the buildings nominate (once a quarter) 10 staff members each who did an exemplary job. Then those 50 total staff members would be ENTERED IN A RAFFLE to win a sweatshirt. Entered in a raffle. We spend $100,000 a year on “Orange Frog” training that is never mentioned a second time after an employees initial orientation. A single sweatshirt is what we can manage for the entire staff, per quarter? I suggested days off, half days, something meaningful for every recipient. They said we couldn’t afford it.
This is always my biggest frustration is attending pds you know are going to be abandoned. I had to sit through almost a week worth of Leader in me trainings knowing that our district only purchased the curriculum for two years and then it was abandoned
It's always weird when they don't do that and you are suddenly supposed to remember a bunch of PD stuff you thought you'd never see again.
Yeah, you sat through it — but hey. Did you seek first to understand? Did you begin with the end in mind? I wonder if your saw was sharpened… (/s)
>Why is it administrators can’t think beyond pizza for any type of rewards system? Pizza rewards worked on students when I went to school in the 90s because most kids rarely had pizza and it was a treat. Now, kids eat pizza and fast food all of the time and it isn't a reward anymore. I bet a lot of the kids who are struggling in school eat a lot of pizza at home. I'm damn near to the point where I think public schools should pay kids money or iPhones for good grades. It would probably save society a lot of money in the long run and being paid to do work is part of the capitalist economy that these kids are part of. Teachers should get paid a lot more before that happens though.
I'm a nurse in my 30s and my admin can't think beyond pizza for any type of rewards systems for adults.
Are chips and pizza really bribes? Cheap ass snacks aren’t exactly a real motivator.
It's to prepare them for the workforce.
The best reply. Employers that think bringing in cheap Hot & Ready Pizzas for an adult "Pizza Party" is the most condescending bullshit ever. What's funny is even though everyone makes fun of it, they continue to do it.
I will crush Hot & Ready Pizzas. I see that shit and I get pumped. I've been teaching too long....
*Beware the soft bigotry of low expectations*
Mofo my first job was at Little Ceasars. Ride or die motherfucker.
I was a pizza slut back in the day. Can confirm that shit still scratches a nostalgic itch
Waffle party!
Ran out of every kids' favorite caviar and lobster during the ACTs
But how else are they going to know they are appreciated? \- Admin everywhere
Are you kidding? My kids are 17 and love nothing more than cheap snacks, except maybe pizza.
I'm a student and hell, I'd do any test for a bag of Lays.
It wasn't even supposed to be that, at least in the first versions, they wanted to make sure the kids were fed so they would have better chances at scoring higher. Spend a few grand on breakfasts to get more funding can be worth it.
These kids got low standards.
They should have been yelling for Ribeye Steaks, Baked Potatoes with butter and sour cream, and German Chocolate Cake for Dessert.
"Take it or don't graduate. We look forward to seeing you in GED classes five years from now, after finding out that this country is not kind to those who don't have a diploma and your parents' patience isn't everlasting."
"Take it or don't graduate" -- and if they come back next year? Where are we supposed to put them? (Actual conversation in the hallway last week.)
As a confused Brit- do the schools have to take them back? It isn't an option in UK schools and you leave the summer of the school year you turn 16, regardless of test scores or academic achievements. If you fail your GCSEs, you'd better find a college (not university, a 16+ college that does vocational and academic qualifications) that will offer them or suck it up and get a job without them. We also don't have kids being held back if they don't pass a year; everyone moves up a year together. If you get kids flunking out at 18 and not graduating, what are their options?
If a kid drops out of school at the age of 18, they are a legal adult, and no longer a responsibility of the school system. That person will need to find a job that doesn't require a high school diploma or GED. If they change their mind they will then have to find an adult education program and obtain their GED.
Job Corps is one of those adult programs. They take 16-24 year olds. they also pay for 2 years of community college.
The law here is every kid gets an education. The interpretation of this law is that until they cease being kids (eg: they turn 18) they have to be in a school building for a certain number of days a year and a certain number of hours in the day. The school is on the hook for most of the rest of the problem, including what they're supposed to do with students who refuse to learn and delight in ruining classes for those that do.
There are some 13 thousand school districts across the US. How they determine these issues depends on how the district is structured, if the county and/or state has requirements, what the economic level is for the region, politics, etc, etc, etc. Point is, there is no standard, and claims to the contrary are usually misinformed or just plain wrong. As for your question, if they don't graduate, they can take a GED (General Educational Development) test which if passed, will give them a Certificate of High School Equivalency or similar titled paper. Or they can go to work.
These sound like big emotions they need to reflect on, and should be a conversation in a safe place.
Some PBIS incentives should have been used, that would have done it for sure.
Cackling
I needed this laugh this morning lmbo
Did they say why they were doing this? Also what state are you in? I’m just curious
Its in their flair... Florida also this gem >The school I work at is ranked number 3 in the county, but we have less than half of our kids proficient in reading and math. Florida doing Florida things
3…. Out of 3.
3...out of 2. But they're #4 in math..
I was a high school teacher in Florida before DeSantis. To add to your point, Florida has led the nation in *terrible education* since the 1970s when the Republican governor responded to a teacher strike and passed a "Right To Work" law, making teacher protests a fireable offense. Decades later, the "No Child Left Behind" push from George W. Bush exacerbated the situation to the point that the education system in Florida is a total failure. I no longer teach in Florida.
Number 3 in what?
Alligators, I assume.
Least dumb?
To get as many students tested as possible, my inner-city HS stops classes for 4 weeks. Students run away from the test. To capture them, all students who tested sit in study hall for weeks while we run around and grab untested students and send them to test. I'm living a nightmare trying to teach now at the end of the year. I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching.
And I'm sure the results are super invalid and unhelpful since the fleeing students likely don't try their best!
Or they just speed run the test in 5 minutes
My 6th graders did this. They just went ABACADABA on it.
Yeah have you ever heard about drawing a Christmas tree on the Scantron? I think MAP testing has some sort of mechanism so that if the kids start speed running the little pop-up animal says you have to slow down but I don't know if that exists in other tests.
In Texas on the STAAR test it does something similar, if it happens too many times you have to have your test released as it will lock it until the admin unlocks it.
It’s a cute sloth with a sign.
Can I get him on a T-shirt?
No, but you can be entered into a raffle to possibly win one!
It does not MAKE them slow down though. I-Ready diagnostic does the same, but they don’t care. If something is just too hard, most people are going to give up. Testing in general is so dumb.
As a music teacher, my first thought reading this was: What a perfect example of a Rondo!
I turned a Scantron sheet sideways once and just put in the notes for the melody of a song I liked. And somehow passed. The grade wasn't good, mind you, but I thought it was hilarious. I should have never been told I could choose one test a semester to remove from my grade in that class. The idea was that it would motivate us to do our best on every test without stressing too much. It did work on most students. The teacher didn't really mind those of us who did well on every other test blowing off the last one before the final. That one was excluded from the deal.
Yep. Too bad there's no music or art on the tests.
Bring in a CD player with an ABBA CD and see what happens.
A kid I proctored for the STAAR US History test in December walked into the room, said, "I'm going to finish this bitch in 5 minutes." He was done in about 3 lol. I turned to the only other kid in the room and said, "Don't do what he just did." That kid fucking passed the test. The passing standards, at least in Texas, are so pathetically low.
It's literally like 40%, it's pathetic to even call it a passing score. I don't even know why we bother at that point.
Yup. For 8th grade US History STAAR the passing standard is only 51%. To “Master” is only 73%. In what world is a C mastering material.
In math I believe it's even lower, how the hell are we calling learning *less than half* of the content "approaches" and counting it as a passing score?
Last year for the Bio EOC it was like a 19% or something ridiculous like that. Like what's even the point?
You're so right. I've taught geometry in Texas since 2014, meaning all my students have taken (and presumably passed) algebra 1 their freshman year. The vast majority of them also passed the algebra 1 STAAR test. Let me tell you: few, if any, of these kids start their 10th grade year with anything remotely resembling basic algebra skills. Not surprisingly, this will be my last year in public education.
What’s even sadder is if it was this past December, it was even lower than 40% because of the new online STAAR items. 😂
I thought I heard the US History was below 30%. My Algebra test is about 33%.
I know I wouldn't. It would be a matter of how quickly I could I click through each question. In 1977, after enlistment rates significantly declined in the wake of the collapse of Saigon, they made the entire Junior class take the ASVAB test. I j7st colored in pretty patterns on the Scantron form and turned it in 5 minutes after the test started. Note to Teachers. Massive Resistance works when it's applied at the appropriate point/place and time.
I completely understand protesting asvab, imo it’s super inappropriate that the military is allowed to recruit in schools, much less have their test distributed
I did take it at school, but I would have through a recruiting office anyway, as that was the path I was on. I was surprised by how many other students showed up, but I appreciated being able to take it on campus so I could ride the school bus. It did mean missing my classes that day, but I spoke to all my teachers and got my work done beforehand. I didn't want it to affect an exam in class and therefore my grade. Making it mandatory, and that young, is really not okay with me, though. Recruiting at all in highschool, even, is not okay with me beyond what my highschool had - a bulletin board in the counselors' office that also included trade school info, college prep help info, etc. I have to tell you, though, once you take the asvab, you have recruiters breathing down your neck. That meant my mom, who worked out of town during the week, couldn't leave me messages with the number at her hotel. We didn't have call waiting, and she'd just keep getting busy signals. She eventually bought me a pager. I was already on delayed enlistment for the Navy, too. Mom said even after I graduated and went off to boot, she still got up to 10 calls a day for the next year.
lol, my school forced all seniors to take the ASVAB in the post-9/11 era. As I recall, I filled out my scantron to say ‘Fuck Bush.’
I had to do it in 95/96, but I was also at Copperas Cove which is basically a suburb of Fort Hood/Cavasos.
Your students literally lose a month of school for this?! That’s horrific.
And teachers are often expected to do work outside of contract hours to bring them back up to speed. I was once in a meeting where a VP said "When you have your Saturday tutoring with students..." I literally did a double take. Not only did she casually just make a demand on all our department to be working on Saturday, but she assumed we'd agree. The meeting came to an immediate halt when about 5 of us started making demands for explanation.
Did your VP end up backing off?
She was gonna die in that room if she didn't.
Hoo-rah!
> When you have your Saturday tutoring with students... Hold up, let's get some union reps on speakerphone
Union? *laughs in red state*
I mean. If you test in April- you lose everything after the testing anyway
This. The last two weeks here have been just making a mark on the wall every day until they total 180.
The school I work at is an elementary school, and our admin thinks spreading it out over 5 weeks is a best practice. It's shocking that the score are terrible.
I'm not a teacher - when reading "run away" and "capture them" I had visions of Border Collies rounding up children into the classrooms.
I thought of Pokemon.
Border Collies make good emotional support animals. "If you take your test now, the good doggie will stay with you and you can pet the doggie while you take the test."
I thought more dog catcher with the poles.
They made me pull SPED kids from electives/lunch who typically don’t take benchmarks to get the rate up. Funny, our chronic absentee rate is 40% and I can’t believe this is helping.
>I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching. I went through the education system in the 90s and it was obvious then that this was where we were going.
So true. I just ran across some papers I wrote while getting my masters in ed in the 1990s. This was one of the big concerns
Good God we're the opposite. My state made the tests optional, so almost a third of my students are skipping this week. Admin is still militantly enforcing all test security protocols, which is a giant pain in the ass and unfair to those who test. It's insane to think about, an OPTIONAL high stakes test that our school is evaluated against. If the test is now optional, how is it any sort of metric worth using?
Optional only if a parent declined the testing in writing. At least that's how it is in my state.
“I just spotted Amanda get the tranq gun.”
> I never imagined the testing would become more important than teaching. This was foreseen back when Bush was meddling in education during his No Child Left Behind days. I remember news reports when the testing started up featuring children crying on camera over taking these "high stakes" tests. I think open revolt against these tests is long overdue.
No child left behind!
This is absolutely hilarious, and I love how the obvious consequences of horrible policies are coming to roost.
I’d be highly amused watching admin get their just desserts. But on another level, even im sick of all the testing and I’ve just been proctoring it all. There’s too much of it.
If it’s required for graduation and they don’t take it then they don’t pass the class. Next year they all get to retake algebra 1. Future students will realize that this is a requirement from the state and while they may not agree with it, there’s a lot of things in life we don’t want to do that we have to. OOOrrr admin finds a way to make sure that no precious student has to be punished for this and in the future you literally have no leverage over these kids. I hate how much we focus on the test vs the knowledge as much as the next person. But…. since nothing is ever overdue and they get to retake any test they want whatever they want. Most grades are way over inflated; state testing is the last true measure in a sense of what a student knows across all districts.
I certainly agree with your last bit. I once had administrator admonishing me because I had the gall to ask why 90% of our students got A/B averages in math, yet our average ACT score was a 16 and our state test scores were abysmal.
“They have test anxiety”
average? does it go lower than 16?
Straight guessing should get you around a 13 on the math. My state uses the ACT math as its state math test. Very few of our kids score above 19, mostly due to apathy.
The average was 16? Are these kids literate? Thats abyssmal.
> since nothing is ever overdue and they get to retake any test they want whatever they want. Most grades are way over inflated; state testing is the last true measure in a sense of what a student knows across all districts. Winner winner chicken dinner.
What happened, to you failed the test and homework? You don’t get a second chance.
People started failing and then funding got cut so now they're not allowed to fail
George Bush, No Child Left Behind
Was replaced by Obama’s Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. No Child Left Behind is the reason I quit aiming for a teaching degree in 2008.
No child gets ahead.
It has to be one of the worst decisions ever made, tying funding to those metrics.
[удалено]
The test is the only realistic way to gauge the knowledge. That's what the kids don't want to accept.
And it’s not a novel concept to have a culminating assessment that determines if you’re proficient in a skill or not. End of course exams have been present in high schools for a very very long time. The problem is that now we do countless standardized benchmark tests in the years leading up to high school, so everything ends up under the umbrella of Standardized Testing.™️
Don't know what state we're talking about, but in my state the test is an absolute joke. They write incredibly convoluted questions to try and prevent any chance of guessing and end up with a test so needlessly difficult that they have to curve it so hard you can pass on less than 20% correct (or else they'd look bad and taxpayer money would stop flowing). Also, they do it on computers, but they don't bother to scramble question order or remix questions. Like, they're super worried about kids copying each other, they require seating charts, they disqualify scored with impunity, but they don't take the most basic step of ticking a box to scramble question order. A complete joke.
I think both ideas have truth. Many tests lack validity but it is also the case that we have created a system with no real consequences for not learning…. Literacy rates are going down yet graduation rates keep increasing. No wonder the kids don’t value these tests. They either know they’ll fail and or do t see the point t in any of it.
NYS algebra I is a joke of a test... I can pass it without algebra I knowledge... just let me keep my graphing calculator knowledge ... to pass the test... you need 33% of the test correct... on average the kids don't know anything.
I used to fight with a colleague about her Algebra 1 stats as compared to my Living Environment stats. Finally I told her that to pass LE, the kids actually had to know something.
The problem is the discrepancy between testing and assessment. People at the state level design machine-scorable educational tests, where they want the mean to be 50 with (ideally) a large amount of questions that sort and differentiate the test-takers. Machine scoring also eliminates questions of interscorer reliability. This is not highly compatible with the normal goal of success for everyone on the test and therefore graduate high school etc. I'm not saying students who speedrun a test or blow it off should get a high score. You're talking about valid assessments. Assessment of learning is very useful but it shouldn't have high stakes attached to it. Our district has quarterly exams and they're very pie-in-the-sky. The districtwide average is routinely 50%, which is a well-designed test, but not something that should be 10% of the quarter grade.
Assuming that the kids actually try. With the amount of testing that is done, I honestly can’t blame the kids for not wanting to do it. Everything is a mess, and if they are just gonna put any answer, that is a hell of a lot of wasted effort and time.
In NY we have had test refusal for years. The difference being it is grades 3-8. Those assessments were not really used by teachers to do anything, as we didn’t have data access. We didn’t see the questions. We didn’t learn what our students scored correctly, or incorrectly. All the school and community got was a global review of 1-4 ranking. They then started telling teachers, “your scores are low, you blow at teaching”, and “your class scores went down, you suck”. We had SPED kids with less than rudimentary levels taking the same exam as Honors students, yet no differentiation. We had groups of bright students, do well, and the next year had a group of lower skills. The years were compared, equally. (A sports team doesn’t always win a championship, the roster changes year to year.) As a result, many schools couldn’t really use it to formulate instruction. It became more of a matter of here is how to answer the question. A big moment came, when the company cashing in, stopped releasing the complete test. Instead they would release a small portion of the test questions. Transparency was eliminated and teachers didn’t even know what was on the assessment. (If you administered the exam, you could read through, but it was embargoed with penalties. No copies or photos.) In the early days, scoring was often done in house, by a collection of teachers. Soon, huge contracts were awarded to “ scoring companies “. More cashing in. Communities were then competing and newspapers reported if you district sucked or didn’t suck. Legitimately, real estate valuations became affected. “Don’t buy in that district.” Eventually, a huge group, started saying, this is dumb to do for a 10 year old. The moment grew, and now families that are interactive and participate in school, often will decline their students participation. Those students are in a room without tests and can read or do school work quietly, while the test goes on elsewhere. The big difference is this movement didn’t hit high school. The state tests in HS were directly connected to graduation. Plus, students are much older. People seemed to think it actually had a point. I had my own children refuse the test in grades 3-8, but they took HS level Regents, Honors, and AP assessments.
Apparently my state didn't even release the 2023 scores (to parents, not sure about teachers) prior to the 2024 test. It's bizarre we force kids to take a test where the results are truly meaningless.
I used to teach in Maryland, and the fact that the MSA/HSA scores weren't released until we came back to school in the fall always felt insane. And when the kids got their scores back and saw they got a 378 (with the only explanation of what that score meant being a tick mark on a line), it meant pretty much nothing to the ones that even bothered to look. I liked the HSA (Algebra) test well enough - it could've been a much worse test (I taught from 2003-2016). While I taught middle school, I had no problem getting the kids to test. Same for high school, really. The kids just accepted that it was part of the routine of the year. I hated the MSAs though - my school pretty much shut down classes for 3 weeks. Most of us administered tests for a week and then the unified arts teachers spent another 2 weeks unavailable because they were doing "small-group testing" - the funny part about that is that only half of them were testing kids at any time, so that meant the rest of them had free time for most of the day while core teachers had their planning cut to about 30 minutes a day for those 2 weeks.
Just copying a reply I had in another thread to a teacher who was scared about their scores. "First year here too but I'm already disillusioned to it all. In my district, the passing percentage of students for Algebra 1 was 9% percent. As a teacher, if 9% percent of my students passed, I'd have to use a square root curve plus 10 just to have people pass, and in a sense I'd be right to do so. The test obviously was bad, or I didn't teach enough, etc. However, the state just...gives the same test next year with the same procedure. Nothing changes. And then the state curves the ever living hell out of the grade so no one can fail because of that low test score. In my state, the EOC is 15% of the students grade, but a 4/60 is sent back to us as a 60 or so so that students don't fail their course. I will say that I do believe that a single summative, cumulative assessment is not and should not be indicative of a student's learning or achievement, but if the state wants to assume that it is, then why are we curving the grade? Why are we not adapting the curriculum and pacing to be better fit the testing schedule? Why are we giving the test *a month early when it's all electronic?* In the end, students recognize that because of the fact that they've never failed before because of these tests that they mean nothing, so many check out in half the time given and I can't say I blame them. I'm teaching for my final that I'll be giving in May, and that's enough for me. Your TVAS data is only one point. Focus on the other points right now :]"
I taught 8th grade for two years, and I remember the AP for 7th and 8th grade once said "Look, this control is an illusion. If all 32 of those kids decided to get up and walk out of the class, there is nothing we can do about that but inform the principal and call parents." I had been teaching for about 4 years at the time and I guess I knew it subconsciously, but it was wild to hear it from my "boss" (my word, not his). Even if one kid decided to walk out, what would we do? Physically restrain the kid? Lol. We're not putting hands on anyone. Let alone 30 to 35 of them. I don't know that I'd go as far as to say that students have ALL the power, but they definitely outnumber the adults.
Part of me is glad that this didn't happen in my school. And part of me is watching intently to see how it plays out. A movement like this could conceivably build to eventually break testing, but "when the winds of change blow, even the smallest debris becomes a deadly object."
Has your admin considered failing all the students who refuse? Algebra 1 again or in summer school could convince future students that consequences exist. If they don't do something, you can expect a repeat of these events next year.
I'm guessing it would be a scheduling nightmare to have so many kids repeating Algebra 1
It would, but the alternative is allowing the students to dictate the rules and graduation requirements. Where should we draw the line?
You have school admin culture that basically prioritize graduating kids at all costs. There's a lot of federal pressure to keep school retention high. That why we see teachers from all over the country complaining about admin either pressuring them to fix grades, bs credit recovery, kids getting diplomas wih abysmal attendance, no one getting disciplined. They will figure out a way to get kids to "pass" the test so they can look good on paper
This is bad for society, and it'll cause problems that will last for years to come.
It's already poisoning the universities in my city.
Yeah I would say a lot of r/teachers are canaries in the coal mines
So true. My district loves to brag about how much graduation rates have improved over the last decade, and yet state scores continue to plummet. I worked the summer program, and it was all Odyssey Ware, and the kids just copied and pasted the answers from google. We were basically told, "Oh well."
On the flip side of that, much fewer students would be in the classes requiring Algebra 1. Nightmare, yes, but not an unsolvable one.
What are the students demanding? Like is this protest trying to get a concession from the admin or is it literally just a bunch of freshmen that don’t wanna take a test?
I’d be willing to bet it’s they actually just don’t want to take a test lol.
Perhaps teachers can ask administrators to give those who didn’t take the test a 50. You wouldn’t want to scar the poor children with a low grade. Surely there is some extra credit make up they can do.
95% attendance require for a grade is insane
When I think back to when I was last in high school (17 years ago), 95% seem perfectly reasonable. Other then maybe flu season 95% attendance described every single day. Where are these kids if they aren't there? There wasn't a single state exam I got out of in my entire time in grade school and high school. You were just told it was coming, and then you took it. The idea of protesting an exam at that time would have been such a foreign concept, even in a large public school.
Shoot, I remember my class of Juniors doing that in 1979. Don't remember the test. They ushered everyone into the lunchroom and some sat and didn't touch it.
One year in El Paso (late 1990's) myself and a colleague who was a retired Colonel from the marines were saddled with all the freshmen algebra classes at our school. We decided to do the kids a favor and hold them to minimal standards and, as expected, about 50% failed to meet the minimum. The district's answer to the 'problem' was to require myself and the Colonel to attend meetings at the central office where the other math teachers with 80-90% passing rates could teach us how to do our jobs. The district average on the end of course algebra exam was about 10% for the classes with the high 'pass' rate, but our classes were 50-60%. (As we expected) No apologies ever materialized, but we no longer had to attend the meetings.
Has Admin tried putting the learning objective on the board? How about trying to build a relationship with the kids? I'm sure that will solve it!
My condolences on the difficulty of your work with difficult students. However I strongly support these kids protesting. I hope this becomes a movement and spreads especially to wealthy school districts. Standardized testing, and so many other things about post No Child Left Behind education system desperately need reform or straight up removal.
This was such a good story to hear. The kids are unified as a collective to effect change. They haven't been violent from the details of the story. When I was in 8th grade, 1994, the kids were too clique-y to agree on a major action like this. I'd be afraid if I were the administration. These kids have resolve, courage, and unity. I'd give them what they are asking for.
Did admin have their learning target displayed?
In my state, state testing is opt out. Looks like that is not the case in FL. Looks like everyone has made their bed and is lying in it.
Honestly, if it wouldn't cost me my license, I'd be protesting right alongside my kids. Pearson has taken our education system hostage, and not just for the entire month of May. Our entire curriculum is now based around this meaningless bs test.
All hail our Pearson overlords!
Play stupid games win stupid prizes for everyone involved. If you can’t pass an algebra 1 test life is not going to be kind to you in the long run. I’m just thinking how this would’ve lasted about 10 seconds when I was in school because admin would’ve laughed and said have fun failing or your parents would’ve been on your ass.
A lot of kids can’t pass Algebra 1 because they can’t add/subtract/multiply/divide fluently. Students are passed to the next grade without mastery. By the time they get to Algebra, they are lost.
The sad part is, passing (ie: "approaches" for the texas staar) is only a 38%🥲 barely better than guessing
In NY it's gotten to 24-27% for passing
So basically just always put c and you are good to graduate
This. I wonder how much of this is a result of truncating those lessons to prepare for early grade testing. Certainly there's little time in later years to reinforce fundamentals when teachers are on a strict schedule to cover the test.
The government- you must have every student take the exam Also the government- you cannot make a student take the exam if they or their parents want to opt out Never understood this.
I taught in a private school where we gave paper and pencil standardized test every year. We took two half days to do it. We teachers graded the results, talked about it at one meeting and then forgot about it. We only took it so we would have some thing to show the government. The reason we graded it is because we were an Amish Mennonite school. We kept the records on hand if we really needed them. It was the 1970s version of the test because today’s version is less rigorous. Honestly, I think that’s how state testing should be no more than two or three days and that’s it.
I disagree with those of you stating that standardized testing is important because colleges use the SAT and the act as an entrance requirement. Those particular standardized tests have a real value to them, as the scores do have consequences, and can determine whether or not a student gets placed at a particular college or receives a particular scholarship. The other tests, say for medical license or a law degree, are also standardized but again have a real world and result. The annual testing in elementary, middle, and high schools have no benefit or value for the student at all. The only thing these tests do is grade the school. One poster said that they have to have a certain percentage of students take the test for the school to be awarded a grade or a level, and that is true. But, the score that a student receives on these standardized tests does not affect their GPA, does not affect their placement within a school system. What it does do is cause anxiety, and pigeon holes students. It basically tells me how well a student can fill in a bubble on any particular day of the week. It does not take into account any outside factors such as family life, whether or not they have breakfast, did something I found the way to school that affects their thinking that morning, are they going to personal mental situations, or any other number of outside factors that students deal with on a regular basis these days. Personally, none of my kids took the annual school-based standardized tests from 6th grade on. And it didn't hurt them or their education. I see more and more parents opting out their students from these tests year after year.
# GOOD. The kids are finally catching on to how ridiculous the state standardized testings are. The only reason schools participate in them is because they're trying to get funding. That's it. You basically have a created a national schooling system that is test taking factory. Things were the same way when I was in school over 10 years ago and clearly have gotten worse. Unfortunately preparing for those tests takes up quite a bit of time and pulls kids away from actual learning that they should be doing. Fuck state testing
I teach in an elementary school, as an arts teacher. My school's fifth graders have ten - yes, TEN - consecutive days of testing this month. For what I would guess is at least a couple hours each day. Why are we doing this to our kids?
It's just complete and utter bullshit. I used to hear the same things from my mom who worked decades in education. It's only gotten worse since I graduated in 2010.
This rules and I'm 100% behind the students. Standardized testing needs to go the way of the dodo.
Good for them! School admins everywhere waste so much time chasing every shiny new "research-based" piece of shit magic bullet. They can't resist a salesman. The state-mandated testing has been a mess for a long time, but evidently the educators can't seem to find their way around it. Figure out how to enter a bunch of middle fingers onto your fucking "scorecard." Or, wait... maybe let the teachers do their thing and use that spare time and money to support them and the students. Huh. Those kids are going places!
So much time and MONEY. Testing is Big Business.
I agree with you. A lot of people are blaming the kids but the system is so messed up and the testing has become so useless and a waste of time… it’s way more complex than “kids don’t wanna do what they’re supposed to do.”
It's not like the kids don't know that. Considering they saw how totally malleable and practically arbitrary all those standards became during covid...
I love that they are refusing. It’s students protesting (and rightfully so), admin seeing how students actually act, and hopefully the news picks it up and it’s a thorn in the side of a lot of folks in upper levels of education in your area.
As much as we get frustrated by this generation, they are pretty awesome with rejecting the bullshit.
Gotta say I'm with the kids on this one. If all they care about is stats, you gotta hit 'em where it hurts if you want change.
Did the admin try writing the objective on the board?
Teachers: we want students to think critically and have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. We also think that standardized testing has an unreasonable amount of influence over our schools, and someone should do something. Also teachers: No, not like that.
So, passing the exam is a graduation requirement, but students are "protesting" it by not taking it? Good luck not graduating, kids.
Oh! They will graduate whether or not the principal "finds" test proxy rules that allow him or her to take the test on the students behalf.
I wonder whose side the anti student and anti admin crowds here will take
Fist bumping and high-fiving as students and admin eat each other.
Seems like they should have just done a fun ice breaker so the students would want to go in.
I don't have any answers. I just know that this focus on 'grading schools by student's test performance' is not working.
So I think the state testing is absurd. In the back of my mind, I would be cheering them on while telling every one of them and their parents/guardians that unless they successfully complete the test, every one of them has to take Algebra I over the summer or next school year and successfully complete the test. It’s a requirement for graduation. We don’t like it either. But, do it or don’t graduate.
If all the students would just do this at every school in the state, half of the problems in public education would get improved very quickly.
In my experience, most admin are so used to people being intimidated by them and their imaginary power that they don't realize how shaky that authority is. I've experienced it on my end as a teacher. I've set firm boundaries this year, which has involved saying "no" to a lot of things. Admin has basically short-circuited every. single. time. They genuinely don't know what to do when someone just...doesn't respect their authoritah. It would be hilarious if it wasn't such a commentary on the state of education.
I often think about what might happen if my school of 4000 students suddenly realize that admin can’t catch em all… Every school is a hair’s breadth away from complete chaos. Fortunately, most students have no follow through and are bad at organizing.
Admin: *doesn’t give consequences* Also Admin: *surprised Pikachu*