I was recently terribly aggravated, once again, by the ridiculous efforts put forth by our state's government to 'better help our students succeed.' In an effort to keep up with the Jones's, the Oregon Department of Education thought it would be mindful to reevaluate the standards that students must meet in order to guage the success of the students and the schools. I am all about high standards for my students - I feel that any student that I have taught would probably tell you that I am pretty stringent and hold my students accountable at many levels. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the state of Oregon is wrong!!
The whole point of the much-maligned No Child Left Behind program was to ensure that every student was meeting the same standard, no matter their race, sex, mental capacity, or socio-economic status. Many will tell you that this is a pipe dream to assume that every student will meet the standard, but in our school, that dream was close to a reality. I say our school, and I guess I am referring more to our elementary school. This past year, the 3-5 grades saw 90% of the students meeting the state benchmark in the areas of reading and math. We were very proud of our staff's and our students' efforts. I'm the first to tell anyone that a given year can be a blip on the radar, but our scores are continually climbing, and our staff's efforts to become better acquainted with research-based practices and curriculums has, in my opinion, really paid off for our students.
The state of Oregon decided to raise the math benchmark scores for grades 3-5...significantly I might add. So significant that last year's 4th graders, who I consider my best class academically in the past 7 years, would only have had 58% pass the state benchmark compared to the 92 percent who passed the test with last year's benchmark standard. I feel like that is a travesty in the highest sense...The scores that the state wants to see are going to be very hard to attain for a lot of the students I have on a yearly basis. Oh, and by the way, these standards were raised after the first 9 weeks of the school year...half a month after the testing window opened in the state of Oregon...what about those kids who finished the first round of testing? Do they get a pink slip informing them that the score that previously passed the benchmark no longer counts??!!
Many of you (if any at all) who actually read this are probably saying that I'm sobbing because it will look bad for me, but that is quite the misnomer. I feel for the kids. I have seen the effects of failure in the eyes and minds of students - and yes, failing these tests (or not meeting the benchmark) is very traumatic for a lot of kids. They are very aware of the scores and the significance...they can't help but know with the amount of importance that is placed upon them by the state and school districts. Students feed off success...not the kind of success you get from copying answers off your friend's paper, but that which comes from putting forth your best effort and knowing you conquered something important. That success is what feeds the heart and soul of a student. Raising the standard to such heights is only going to lower the success rate for students, build resentment of the education system, and contribute to higher drop-out rates.
The ironic thing behind all this is what the department of education and the rest of the bureaucratic bimbos didn't do. The standard for the middle school and high school tests weren't even raised!!! The high school standard remained the same, and the middle school score was actually dropped by a point. Tell me how that is setting higher standards!!! The state put out a 60-page document outlining the rationale behind the changed scores and attributed the majority of the statistics to how the scores predicted success on the test once students reached high school. Talk about a waste of resources...how much money did the state pay to get that information and then put together that ridiculously-long document?
I have an idea...how about we try and set our students up to succeed? I'm not talking about dumbing it down, but let's give our children a reasonable chance to experience pride and self-worth. If there are issues at the upper grades, how about we focus our attention on that problem rather than creating more problems at the lower grades? Thank you Oregon Department of Education and political pinheads who haven't spent any time in a classroom actually teaching kids for setting these kids up for failure and frustration. Thank you for making my job even more diverse, as I will now have to hold counseling sessions with kids to discuss how it's ok to not meet the incredibly difficult state benchmark. Thank you for continually chastising me as an educator for not doing my job adequately and not saying thank you for doing a good job when it happens. Thank you for increased mandates on how to do our job effectively and then cutting our budget and taking away the money that would help meet those mandates. Amazing how Obama's education stimulus money came in, and the state decided to reduce school's budgets by the exact amount of money that the stimulus money would have given to each district...I digress...Thank you ODE for making it easier for me to try and not teach to a test. Thank you for taking away a good thing and replacing it with your job security as you must now find out what to do about all these kids who will not be meeting the new state standards!!!
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