One Major Problem With Standardized Testing...

... the people scoring it.

Please read this. I'm going to order the book and would be happy to share it. I'm not surprised by this, but I wish I were:

Farley tells of test scorers who arrived each morning hung-over, and didn’t make much progress on their daily quotas until they had taken several “fortified” coffee breaks, test scorers who were far more interested in studying for the bar exam than in carefully reading the papers they were scoring, and foreign-born scorers who could not understand simple English.

These stories are funny until one realizes that students’ fates hung in the balance. The results of some of these tests, like the California High School Exit Exam, may determine a young person’s future. Others, like the fourth and seventh grade writing samples of the California Standards Tests, may help decide which schools are closed and which stay open.....

Several years ago one of the largest high schools in the Oakland was moved to a more punitive level of Program Improvement, which would have been avoided if only two students had received higher scores.

Comments

A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class....

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other pri...

The Best Mistake

I recently wanted to get a pedicure (I promise this will be important) and was looking at nail salons nearby. I knew there was a place called Kim's Nails near my exercise class, so I quickly googled to see if I could make an appointment online (I hate calling on the phone) and it let me, so I made an appointment for a few days later and went on with my day. Later that day, I got a text confirming my appointment and I realized that I had made the appointment at the wrong Kim's Nails! I meant to make an appointment for the one in my city and I made one at a nail shop in the next city over (Kim's Nails is a common business name). Because I had already made the appointment and they had taken the time to text me, I figured I'd just go with it. OK, if you're still with me, this is where it gets exciting! A few hours after I got the confirmation text, the owner of Kim's Nails texted me again. the text just said, "Are you a teacher?" I didn't know why they...

Bronwyn Harris, Author

Search This Blog