State Tests: Math & Language Arts

826.  The number of marbles in a jar?  The amount of calories in a McDonalds McFlurry (with oreos)?  The real time that a show starting at 8:00 ends?  Or… how my school did on the state test?  Bingo.

This number probably doesn’t mean a lot to you unless you’re a teacher or if your child goes to a school that uses federal money.  In short, however, this number means that the teachers and students at my school worked their a%@$es off during the last school year.

We largely teach students who live in poverty and are second-language learners.   The poverty part is the stickler.  It manifests itself in small and large ways on an everyday, every-hour, every-moment basis. 

  

There are so many issues surrounding the state test, that to address them all would be 1) impossible, and 2) not something I’m interested in doing.  Here’s the one issue, however, that I can’t get over.  First, know this: I don’t think the state test is the “enemy.”  I believe that there does need to be some sort of thermometer at the end of the school year.  The problem of course is: what are we measuring? 

Someone decided that today’s elementary schools need to focus on language arts and math.  I don’t know who came up with this, but ok.  And it’s not like I don’t agree, I just don’t know…  Nor do I know how the people who decided this, well, decided this.  Ah, but I digress…

Check this out:  for the last many years (I’ve been teaching for 8), every May, California students have been tested on, well, California standards.  And?  So?  Well, these California standards are markedly more difficult than the national standards.  In fourth grade, we’ve been teaching things that I didn’t learn until middle school.  Frankly, we’ve been teaching things that I don’t even think fourth grade brains are ready to learn.  I wonder why California scores have paled to scores in other states…hmmm….

My belief is that instead of learning how to write a five paragraph essay or add fractions with unlike denominators, our fourth graders become survivalists and mimic steps to solving problems when, in reality, they have little idea what they are doing.  In short, they Manage.

Where is this blog going?  Well, in a year, California will no longer test children on the more difficult California standards.  We will, instead, be testing kids on the (easier) national standards. These standards are more realistic.  The fourth grade brain might, in fact, be able to grasp the concepts of the national standards.

So, what have we been doing for the last many years?  Are the kids that were tested on the California standards going to develop into smarter people?  Why are we switching to the national standards?  Why are we focusing on language arts and math?  

Here’s California’s educational goal:

California will provide a world-class education for all students, from early childhood to adulthood. The Department of Education serves our state by innovating and collaborating with educators, schools, parents, and community partners. Together, as a team, we prepare students to live, work, and thrive in a highly connected world.

While I’m incredibly proud of what my school is able to accomplish in the midst of substantial obstacles, I still wonder.  826—it’s fantastic.  But, it’s 826 in math and language arts.  In a world riddled with paralyzing problems, in a country where the middle class is becoming a memory and the United States no longer manufactures anything, shouldn’t our educational system correspond more with what’s really out there?

In looking through any day’s news headlines we must conclude that children also should, perhaps be tested on SOCIAL SKILLS to “thrive in a [blah, blah blah]”  Also, considering the fact that the apparent goal of technology seems to be embedding computers into our skin, shouldn’t science fit in somewhere?

And a whole separate issue has to do with this: many of our kids constantly experience failure and frustration in school.  They might thrive in a place where they could learn woodworking and circuitry.  But, no: language arts and math, language arts and math, language arts and math. 

The switch of the standards from the California standards to the national standards gets me because it just underlines that what we are being asked to teach the kids seems so random.  My colleagues are awesome.  We rise to the occasion.  I just am questioning what occasion it is that we are being asked to rise to.