Juking the Stats

Last year, I was OTF poster boy, working tirelessly to close the achievement gap. And results were good. As a school, we showed notable gains on CST geometry scores. I was happy.

I'm less confident this year. I don't feel my kids are prepared. In fact, overall, I feel less of a teacher as I was last year. Word on the street is that 2nd year is miles easier than the first, yet the lows I experienced this year were lower and longer than last. I find myself looking to year 3 more and more. What improvements can I make? How can I be better prepared? How can I fix things? I find myself merely waiting on these next 5 weeks to pass as opposed to getting a job done.

I'm beginning to question my purpose here. I feel like summer institute bred me to close the achievement gap, which is something I believe in. Wholeheartedly. But "closing the achievement gap" manifests itself in the form of "improving test scores" and I'm sick of it. Rarely do I attend a faculty meeting or enter an edu-debate w/ a colleague w/out the mention of test scores and I tire. Rarely do I hear news of education and work towards "progress" without it being linked to more standardized tests.

API, AYP, funding, merit-based pay, student placement - so much of it hinges on how our kids do on these tests. Tests that don't matter to students (I've talked about this in the past), tests that matter too much to teachers. If we want to fundamentally change the education system for the better, we need to fundamentally change how that happens and how it's measured.

Granted, I have NO answers. I do want my kids to do well on these tests b/c I want them to feel successful, I want them to prove they've learned something this year, but I don't want my teaching to be driven solely by reaching higher test scores. The purpose of my existence as a teacher is shifting - I want to go beyond the curriculum and beyod these tests. I begin this transition from year 2 and year 3 with this in mind.