Tears and prayers in the classroom

This past February my students had to take the state mandated standardized test, ISTEP. Every state I've taught in has their own version of a standardized test, part of the outcome of No Child Left Behind. In Florida it was the FCAT and in Minnesota it was MCA. In all the states besides Indiana that I have taught the test was given in the spring after almost a years worth of instruction. I thought it was odd that Indiana usually tested in the autumn. This year the Indiana Department of Education decided to switch from the fall to the spring, but in order to keep No Child Left Behind results they would test BOTH in the fall and in the spring for 2008-2009 school year. The following school year 2009-2010 we would only test in the spring. This is logical in theory but obviously not thought out by someone who has been in a classroom.

Fall started with us gearing up for ISTEP practice. Teaching how to fill in bubbles for answers for students just arriving to this country, test taking strategies (eliminating possibilities on multiple choice questions), and reading and vocabulary review were all the focus for August and September.

The state of Indiana gave us a window of two weeks to take ISTEP. Normally this is fine. We take one section of the test each day and don't fatigue the students and also get some instruction done (not testing all day). Then there came a storm called Ike. The first week of ISTEP we had no school. Our students, teachers, and schools didn't have electricity. Now the spread out, non-fatiguing test taking strategy was thrown out the window. All students must complete the test in one week. My students in particular had a hard time with this. One of the accommodations for ESL and special education students is they get extended time to take the test (as long as they are working productively). I also can read the math and science portion of the test to them (essentially anything that isn't testing their reading ability). How do you fit in extended time when there isn't any time to extend it to? We did our best and crossed our fingers and hoped.

Next in February ESL students had to take the annual LAS test to assess their English language improvement. This is not a pass fail test, but rather a test of their level. I always stress to my students if you are a level one (the lowest) on the next test you take I expect you to be a two and so forth. It doesn't always happen (just look up any ESL theorist Krashen, Chomsky, VanPatten, Snow, Skinner et. al to see that it takes 7-9 years to become fluent...some even say up to 12, but I'm not going to argue with the DOE that supposedly bases their decisions on scientific research and best practices).

Again we had a two week window. The fist week of testing I was ready to go. I had made a schedule and had been helping the kids understand the importance of testing but also I only wanted improvement not to completely pass. The kids were looking forward to the challenge and we had two weeks to take the test without stressing anyone out. Hello ice storm! We lost a week of school from the worst ice storm in Kentuckiana history in at least 50 years. It became a repeat of ISTEP. We rushed to get it finished and students were stressed.

Two weeks after we finished LAS testing we slipped back into ISTEP mode. Remember when I said Indiana was switching from fall to spring testing. This is the year for BOTH. My kiddos now had to take the ISTEP again. This time it was a "new and improved" ISTEP with more writing and little did we know, multiple forms.

Remember I can read non-reading questions to them. Now I had a room of multiple test forms with different problems. I'm trying to read the problems and instructions to my students and keep them on the same page (functionally if not actually) so that I can make sure they are doing the right problem (some of them couldn't figure out the different questions being read weren't theirs and were doing the other forms problem that I had just read). A structural nightmare ensued.

Then we started math. I read one problem and thought "How in the hell are they going to do this?" I even called my mom, a seamstress who makes lots of my clothes, how to do it. This was on the 5th grade test and makes me wonder if I'm not smarter than a fifth grader.

You have a piece of material 2 1/6 yards long by 1 yard wide. You want to cut it into thirds to make table cloths for a school picnic keeping them 1 yard long. What is the perimeter of the all three table cloths? Explain your answer.

The seamstress, Mom, said you fold it equally into thirds, cut it, and then measure the perimeter. Makes sense to me.

What my students were actually supposed to do was convert yards to inches (most of my students have a hard time with this since they are from the rest of the words that uses metric), do division to divide the inches into thirds (my kids CAN do this if they new what inches to use), find the measurement for the tablecloth, and then find the perimeter (they know the formula and can do this). Explaining what they did is a different matter. Now they are using English (my girl who came in January from Mexico wrote in Spanish even though that is counted wrong) to describe a process that they didn't understand fully to begin with, but also in words that they may or may not know in English.

I think you can imagine the frustration level just from this one problem that my students were facing. This went on for a week. I had two really good students actually cry. One student who has made great gains in his English and reading ability got to one of the writing prompts. He had already finished one writing prompt. This prompt he was to read a portion of a story (infer the problem) and finish the story as the writing prompt. He read the story to me several times (so I could tell he actually could read it), but when he got to the finish the story part of the problem he became blocked. He made several attempts before erasing everything, putting his head down and crying, and then writing an apology to the scorers of ISTEP because he couldn't do the prompt. Reading over his shoulder made me want to cry also. I told him to stop, gave him a hug, and told him he did the best he could. He said he might be able to finish tomorrow, but of course we can't do that (and I think the powers that be in Indianapolis need to see exactly what our kids are feeling when they take a test that is this mismatched to our standards).

After all the testing is over (we take another multiple-choice portion in April) and taking into account all the school missed for weather anomalies we will have missed SIX WEEKS of teaching. That is a grading period in our school district. How well are students supposed to do on any test if they are missing that much instruction time?

One of the powers that be in Indianapolis, Tony Bennett, also a former school district superintendent from a neighboring school district (the one that canceled school because it was too hot) is part of who we have to lobby to change ISTEP or at least take into consideration all of the odd happenings of the year.