Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The devious nature of test prep


We received the following e-mail from our principal today:


"Congratulations! According to our ThinkLink results, our scores on the third test showed:

Third Grade – 90% Advanced and proficient in Reading/Language and 91% Advanced and proficient in Math

Fourth grade – 90% Advanced and proficient in Reading/Language and 86% Advanced and proficient in Math

Thanks for your hard work. Now we just need to get those scores the week of April 20th."

Yeah, just the encouragement I need to do even more test prep exercises. It's also easy to see how easy it is for teachers to feel their jobs are tied to test scores.
We rarely get e-mails or recognized for how great our kids learned how to write about what chores they hate doing around the house, or what they plan to do on rainy days. How about the fact that my 4th grade ELL students came up 100 different dresses to draw and describe after we read The Hundred Dresses?
Nope, we get positive affirmation for our test scores. Yipeeee

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