Take Me To Post Comment Form I am a parent, and I am an educator. These two aspects of me often do battle. My eighth grader is one of the “statistics" this year; she failed the Math portion of the CRCT. Let me give some background: My daughter has always been an “A" student. In 5th grade she felt she was struggling in math, but continued to make A’s, this continued through 6th grade. In 7th and 8th grade B’s in math began to appear on her report cards, but not with great frequency. Her test scores were not always the best, and yet her grades were solid. For 4 years, when I contacted her math teachers I was told “she is doing fine", I was even discouraged from scheduling conferences. Now, here we are…….I went to see an administrator at ECMS and was given all the politically correct answers; “the test was re-vamped this year, the test is based on new standards this year, and “we expected scores to be lower with the changes in curriculum." You might wonder why I didn’t see the teacher; this is yet another facet of the story. My daughter‘s last four math teachers have taken maternity leave during their tenure as her teacher. Now, remember, I am a teacher too, I had my babies while teaching, teachers have lives. My problem, for lack of a better term, is not with the teachers having babies, but one must still consider the impact of four years of “substitute teachers" on my child’s education. We opted for private help in math rather than punish her with summer school. My thoughts were, how can the school bring her skills up in 2 or 4 weeks when it took 4 years of missing pieces to form this gap in her skills? So off we go to Sylvan, where they run a battery of tests that clearly show her gap began in 5th grade and widened through 8th,(insert sarcasm) imagine that! After her second session at Sylvan I asked what she had learned, her reply was "I learned my teachers have really screwed me up", she then went on to tell me how well she understood some common concepts after two hours at Sylvan that she never understood before. At this point I have to say, I fully accept that my daughter and myself hold much of the responsibility for the math events of the past 4 years, but I also feel the system has done her wrong as well as hundreds of other students. How can the state and local boards dismiss the fact that an inordinate number of students failed to “meet expectations on this test. The state superintendent felt the need to “toss" the Social Studies scores for certain grades, but these math scores are “OK". I especially liked the comment in the paper with regards to the drop in local 8th grade math scores, the comment was: “I understand the state average was 62 percent. We were 8 percentage points above the state." That fact has little bearing on the tests effect on my child. We know there are kids who are slackers or who don’t care, as well as those who work hard and still can’t get ahead, but my child has always gone with the flow, worked hard and persevered, until now. Wednesday she takes the test again, we have 4 more hours of Sylvan, at $50 an hour before then. Her fate hangs in the balance? No, not really, I will not allow my child to be “left behind" based on this fiasco of a test. Incidentally, the test score sheet has a disclaimer that says: “A single exam can provide only limited information. A student taking the same test more than once might score higher or lower in each content area within a small range. Performance at the domain level should be interpreted with caution due to the limited number of items"
So now I have vented my feelings. I wonder how many other parents are feeling the same way. How many other “good students lost confidence in themselves based on this test? As a teacher, and a parent, thank you to all the teachers who have helped along the way. I really believe most of us are doing the best we can with the resources we are given…..but that is a story for another time...............