Comments on: Testing: Just The Facts

By: hguru

hguru — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:22:28 +0000

Instructional time for first and second grade continues to decrease due to all of the increased testing requirements. The LACES reading pacing guide deletes over 20 days worth of our student’s reading instructional time in order to create time for administrating the Dominie, Dibels and quarterly assessments. Dibels testing and the Dominie are taken three times a year and the quarterly test is four times a year. Each assessment is scheduled to take two days each. We must take even more instructional time away from our students to test beyond this due to the time it takes to administer the Dominie one on one with up to 29 students. Teaching time is also taken away from all other academic areas as well. Then there is the Terra Nova on top of all of this. We all understand the need to measure specific student performance through testing, but when does it go too far? We also need to test and assess regular classroom performance in order to give grades on report cards. We are being left with very little time to deliver quality learning opportunities for our students. The OAT preparation is not just for the third grade and up. The foundation needs to start in key areas in kindergarten and the first and second grades in order to prepare our students with the skills to be ready for the OAT tests. Right now we are spending a lot of their critical learning time taking assessments.

By: kmbinoh

kmbinoh — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:32:46 +0000

Well, the latest testing snafu is the OTELA. Many of our classes have lost all their specials for the week while the three art, music, and gym teachers supervise and test about 20 children! Therefore, with all the indoor recesses we have to supervise, AND no specials, we basically have NO breaks from Monday thru Thursday, other than our less than half hour to eat. Classroom teachers, and how decisions affect them and their students seem to often take a back seat to accomodate tests! I wonder how other schools have tested their ESL children and if they have been able to do it without taking specials away from the children. And where was the help we needed when we spent days away from instruction to do all the Dominie t esting?

By: Columbus teachers file grievance against testing mania. « PREA Prez

Columbus teachers file grievance against testing mania. « PREA Prez — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:37:34 +0000

[…] Tip of the hat to the CEA. […]

By: tmikisbwl

tmikisbwl — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:11:37 +0000

There were some inaccuracies in the Dispatch story. The quarterly assessments take longer than 50 minutes in elementary schools. For some students, those tests can take 2 1/2 hours. Also, the dominie test, which the Dispatch reported as occuring over a two-day period, actually took closer to a week to complete, given class sizes of 28-30, and the tests taking 20-30 minutes per student.