As a teacher who has been through all the phases of these high-stakes tests, I think it's the worse thing we've done for education. A good teacher and a good district should and would assess students at beginning and end of every school year regardless.... and use those benchmarks to monitor what and how core subjects are taught.
But the way it is now is just a big money-making scam for Pearson (co. that makes the tests) and way too much pressure. Today, the 3rd graders had 56 math questions to complete in 4 hours. It does not take that long to figure out if they are learning math!! And teachers aren't even allowed to say a word to them other than read the directions.....can't even pat them on the back and say good job! This is making many good teachers want to leave the profession.
A good parent group advocating for change is
Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA). You can find them on Facebook or at website
www.tamsatx.org/
Check them out if you feel frustrated......they are working hard in Austin trying to get things changed.....
@texas2011:
Awful to see otherwise very bright kids getting left behind because they couldn't pass a STAAR/TAKS test, even though their grades indicated otherwise. I personally know 4 kids who got left behind in 5th grade (and 2 in 3rd), 3 of whom had good grades in everything but the math STAAR (one who couldn't pass the science test).
Heartbreaking to watch these kids get left behind and essentially rot in all of their other classes for a year while their peers went on to middle school. Lots of lost social relationships just by natural process of absence.
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If it were a kid who was failing everything and generally a problem, I'd say maybe they needed another year to catch up (so they're not set up for failure in the next grade), but that hasn't been my personal experience yet.
I could go on and on. I won't.
