Monday, March 08, 2004
Heartbreak Hotel
Regents week just ended. It’s a week full of “high-stakes” standardized testing, and a monumental waste of time. No lesson planning though, which is nice. I had to be there at 8:00 am every morning. That meant leaving the house by 7:00, but it wasn’t so bad, since I was supposed to be getting out early.
I proctored two tests, both for Special Ed kids. Monday was a Math RCT, a test apparently reserved for Special Ed seniors so I had a room full of 19 and 20 year olds, an envelope of test booklets, and a couple of boxes of calculators.
I was given absolutely zero instructions on how to administer this exam. When to start, what to say, what questions to answer, whether to let anyone go the bathroom. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone else though, so I didn’t let it bother me. I guess no-one in administration is too concerned with how these 7th year seniors do on their 2nd tier math exam. Their must not be any money tied up in it.
They were generally a sweet, quiet group of kids. I think the test totally freaked them out. Most of them seemed like your average ******* student, just unfortunately stuck in the dead-end of the sped track. A few were genuinely slow though. One kid kept asking me to read the word problems to him. I obliged him, though I was sure I was violating some kind of testing protocol.
Tuesday I was assigned to administer Day 2 of English Regents. This was apparently a much bigger deal, with all kinds of testing ID numbers, assigned seating, 3 forms of attendance etc… The funny thing was these kids seemed a lot less concerned with the test. Four or five straggled in well after the test had begun, and therefore missed my impassioned and precisely articulated reading of the directions. One kid, Elvis, came in late, went to sleep for an hour, the got up and left.
Hail to the King.
Regents week just ended. It’s a week full of “high-stakes” standardized testing, and a monumental waste of time. No lesson planning though, which is nice. I had to be there at 8:00 am every morning. That meant leaving the house by 7:00, but it wasn’t so bad, since I was supposed to be getting out early.
I proctored two tests, both for Special Ed kids. Monday was a Math RCT, a test apparently reserved for Special Ed seniors so I had a room full of 19 and 20 year olds, an envelope of test booklets, and a couple of boxes of calculators.
I was given absolutely zero instructions on how to administer this exam. When to start, what to say, what questions to answer, whether to let anyone go the bathroom. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone else though, so I didn’t let it bother me. I guess no-one in administration is too concerned with how these 7th year seniors do on their 2nd tier math exam. Their must not be any money tied up in it.
They were generally a sweet, quiet group of kids. I think the test totally freaked them out. Most of them seemed like your average ******* student, just unfortunately stuck in the dead-end of the sped track. A few were genuinely slow though. One kid kept asking me to read the word problems to him. I obliged him, though I was sure I was violating some kind of testing protocol.
Tuesday I was assigned to administer Day 2 of English Regents. This was apparently a much bigger deal, with all kinds of testing ID numbers, assigned seating, 3 forms of attendance etc… The funny thing was these kids seemed a lot less concerned with the test. Four or five straggled in well after the test had begun, and therefore missed my impassioned and precisely articulated reading of the directions. One kid, Elvis, came in late, went to sleep for an hour, the got up and left.
Hail to the King.
