They give them in October so you cannot really teach to the test, they are varied but let's face it, fundamental Reading and Math, the key pieces should be understood. Math is tough as kids today hate the work. My wife has taught middle school for over 20 years.
For me this another example of right wingnut social darwinism entering school. Arts don't matter as we need need ditch diggers not artists. Teachers should know if students are progressing and testing is a mixed bag. Many students hate tests and do poorly, some on purpose as the test has no meaning for them.
I think education as a value is not high in our society, we admire athletics and then - who do we admire next? Glamour? Fame? Look at McCain's reason for being against the recent GI bill. And yet the GI bill did marvels for improving our society after WWII.
For crying out loud! We at least partially agree on something!!! The idea that all children are capable of performing at least at grade level, is just wrong. It defies the notion basis of IQ, which while I in no way would use alone or based on one evaluation a sure measure, over time with other performance measures taken into account, is a pretty good indicator of where one falls on ability to think more complexly. Heck it plain ignores common sense.
The average is 100. Out of 18 students this year, 3 fell below the 100 CSQ, only one of which was below 85, which is really NOT GOOD. This is in 7th grade. This one child is NOT able to make an inference if her life depended on it. She needs to be told to take her sweater off if it's too hot. She needs to see others putting on their coats when it's cold. While a lovely child, she is not being serviced to care for herself in our school, we don't have the staff or facilities that are necessary. Her teachers do not have the training or honestly the interest in doing the occupational and social teaching of the severely mentally disabled or they would have specialized in university or master's work. Note: standardized tests are NOT IQ Tests, though they render a CSQ, (or some other acronym), which is based upon age controlled results of the testing service. These are not perfect, as some are more rigorous than others, but they come pretty close. They are an indicator. Teachers usually look for significant outliers, otherwise don't really use all that much. If a student repeatedly performs better or worse than I would assume on tests, based upon their classroom answers and homework, I might pull the records from the year before to see if they are under or over achieving. I don't think many are 'over achieving' rather they may not be good at standardized tests or just have set higher goals, are motivated by my subject areas or just be more disciplined than the rest of that class. If a student appears to be underachieving, I'll try to find some ways to motivate or guide them.
4 kids scored above 120, one of those in 130's which is pretty high. One 5th grader scored in the 160's which is quite mind blowing, I wonder if we can service that type of giftedness any better than the student with 78? Not quite as worried, as the parents have repeatedly been advised to check out gifted schools. The father is a chemical engineer, the mother a doctor. They don't want him 'labeled' or 'singled out.' That's their choice, though I'd make different, he's a bit of a behavior problem, bored I know.
That girl with 78 is never going to reach 100, regardless of any guidelines set by any government. She will not graduate from college, I don't think it likely she can graduate high school, with a regular academic plan. I've used her IEP to modify her work to a 5th grade level, she would not pass if I gave her tests, so I don't, on the principal's directive-which I made her write and sign off on via the IEP.
School's can't fix all the problems that are currently assigned to them, though most caring and good teachers wish they could. I can't fix broken homes, neglected kids, though I can notice a particularly sad or angry kid and give them some attention as quickly as possible. I can show them I like them and trust them by giving them some task or errand that demonstrates that. I can get to my classes extracurricular events from time to time, know when they win 'a big game' and write a congratulatory note on the board.
Bottom line though, I'm supposed to teach kids ancient history and why they should study it, how it's relevant to their lives today. I'm supposed to teach civics and why they should vote, observe Memorial Day and the like. They should know the underlying philosophies of democracy, capitalism, constitution making and not just that we have a Constitution and some wars that have been fought. They need to know the facts and by the end of middle school have some basic knowledge and ability to think of the ideas that are important to themselves.
In the course of doing the above, I also need to teach them how to move onto higher order thinking, which is reading, comprehending, then analyzing and synthesizing the material. They need to learn to write their conclusions with clarity and logic.
All the information above in the last paragraph is relevant to standards and standardized testing, while the bolded is taught via the proceeding, the higher scores on tests are reflected by achieving the bolded attributes.
