This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.
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Here is what I think. I have been teaching special ed students for 23 years. Variety of settings but always elementary. This year I have 8 students, 3 in 5th grade, 3 in 4th grade and 2 in 3rd grade. They have struggled previous years with all academic areas. SO we created a 12:1:1 in our district for them (would have sent them out of district in the past). Now stated ed says that I need to be teaching them all CC at their grade level??? How can I possibly teach 3 separate grade levels of ELA, and Math??? Not enough time in the day for it. They will be even further behind if that is the way they want me to do things?? If they could work at the grade level, we would have left them in gen. ed. Just exposing them to curriculum does not help them to improve and catch up.
Post by ladywclass on Sept 1, 2013 17:05:30 GMT -5
I just posted in Special Education and HST, so won't repeat here.
A lot of my issue with testing at this point is the time that it takes for us to test. Last year we gave a local measure that is supposed to show growth below and above grade level. IMHO it does a better job at measuring the 'above'. Our students receive accommodations for the math test to be read to them. They take it in the resource room during their regularly scheduled group time with us. Often it takes them more than one session (or two or three) to finish the assessment. If they do not work on it in a period of 10 days during the time it is unfinished, the assessment 'clears' and they must start over - so we have to monitor this. Next we take Acuity A. Students take LA and Math. This is scheduled so that the gen ed classes spend on computer lab hour taking each test - one per week - so it is a 2 week schedule. During this time, we try to test the students when they test with the classroom OR we group them and then they must have a place to be with us during the time their class takes tests. We also try very hard to maintain our service schedule (IEP minutes of service time) with the lower grades AND with the ones that are testing. While they are with us testing, we count those minutes, but must "make up" any minutes in the IEP past that period. Basically we test all day every day for two weeks. We take Acuity B and Acuity C later in the year. These add either a Social Studies or a Science test for grades 4-6 so the schedule encompasses a 3 week period for each of these. Same challenges as Acuity A, only one week longer for each. We also have some speech students with accommodations so they are grouped with our students for this testing. In March we take the extended answer ISTEP+. This is fairly similar to the Acuity testing windows except we do test when the classroom is testing. Sometimes other licensed staff are testing our students because there just aren't enough of us (2) in sp ed to "go around". We must make sure that everyone who is testing has a detailed list of individual accommodations because there is variation from student to student. Our students on IMAST have to be scheduled with support staff during the time their classes are taking ISTEP+. In April/May we take the multiple choice portion of ISTEP+. Pretty much the same as when we take the extended answer portion except THIS time we are also scheduling testing for the students who take IMAST and even more certified staff is necessary. At the end of the year we do another local assessment to gauge growth (same one that is done at the beginning of the year). In between we also have four quarters where we have to collect data on the students' individual objectives/goals for progress monitoring purposes. We have to send progress reports at the end of each quarter on all objectives/goals. At times we are asked by the school psychologist to do some achievement testing or adaptive behavior scales on some of our students either for initial evaluation or for re-evaluation for special education services. We write IEPs based on the students' birthdays, so they are spread out a bit throughout the year; however, we still have to do all birthdays in April, May, June, July, August, and the first month of school for the following year in the 6 weeks or so prior to the middle of May. In between there are the initial conferences; the conferences requested by parents (or teachers or outside agencies); move-in conferences; behavior plan creation, monitoring, and reviews; and re-evaluation conferences.
Now ... in between I have to figure out when to actually instruct my students so that they CAN learn some skills to help close the gap between their skill levels and those of their peers ... anyone else feel this pain?
Elem spec ed, 29th year (also gen ed, g/t, college experience) Indiana & Texas
WOW!!! I thought we spent a lot of time on testing. We give the STARR 3xs a year, on the computer. That is also what they use for our local teacher eval score and then the end of the year NY state test. All of that takes up a lot of time. Every year I am asked to do "test prep" and I always say that I won't do it. It is painful enough to have my kids take these ridiculously hard tests in the first place let alone prep for a month for them. UGH!!!! I also have the reports and other evaluations of my kids to do.
I think if the powers that be want all students tested, then we should do so. It's probably not a bad skill to learn how to sit quietly, try your best at something, and follow directions. The real issue is what happens with the results of the tests? Are they used to 1. Evaluate teachers? (If so, this is completely wrong, and potentially illegal) 2. Prevent or interfere with a student's ability to graduate High School?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought SPED students could graduate with a special kind of diploma?