Teach Effectively!

A couple of educators—one teacher and one librarian—who record their reflections in blogs have comments about their concerns with administering high-stakes tests to students with disabilities. Interestingly, they are both from Indiana and, therefore, refer to the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP). Here are snippets:

After the first day of administering the ISTEP, a teacher who identifies herself as Lisa wrote this:

Gosh, how I abhor ISTEP. We finished the first 4 tests in Language Arts today and I thought my kids (students) would go NUTS before they finished. I know they just started guessing; this test is just ridiculously difficult for some of them and the state of Indiana should be ASHAMED for putting them through this hell!! Let us special ed teachers and the case conference committee decide who will or will not be exempt from this test based on what we KNOW about these kids. The test is stressful enough for kids in general education without a disability.

Ms. Schubel, the librarian, has similar comments:

we have a set of directions that we HAVE to read and we can’t make any deviations from those directions. there are no further explanations of any sort, etc… i’m telling you it sucks. i sit there watching this poor child take this test and he doesn’t even know what the word “travels” means. and it’s not his fault…but he’s gotta take this test and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Link to Ms. Lisa’s comments and a link to Ms. Schubel’s comments.