From a Texas teacher: The STAAR-Alternative is the test given to students with moderate-severe disabilities. Teachers must create all of our own materials for testing our students since they dont take the traditional standard test with scantrons, etc. Of course, these tests are completely meaningless and require hours and hours of paperwork and creation of the actual test. Thats bad and all, BUT... Today I learned that next year there will not be a STAAR-Alternative test. Every student will have to take a pencil and paper or online test. The only accommodations allowed are for the teacher to read the question and enter the answer for the child. This is a PRIME example of people making the decisions have zero experience working with children, ESPECIALLY those with severe disabilities. The education reformers (deformers) say this is to assure rigor and make sure that everyone is tested fairly. And of course, their classic cliché is that this is putting kids first (the testing administrators words -- not mine!) because it will hold all teachers accountable for creating educational excellence in their classrooms. I call BS! This is happening because the legislators and Pearson didnt know that the teachers and schools were using their funds to create all of the tests for these students, so this change is another way for Pearson to profit from forcing more students to take a test in their format. I want to walk up to Sandy Kress and Bill Hammond and ask them how exactly they expect me to read a question and write down an answer for the two kids in my class who are hearing and visually impaired and who have a very small ability of communication at all, let alone enough to give me an oral response!! I have kids who are still working on reaching and grasping objects and sitting up on their own -- things 6 month old infants develop. This is the exact OPPOSITE of putting kids first. In FACT, this is setting children up for failure, which, last I checked, isnt actually good for children at all. In addition to all of this non-sense, the poor 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students are being forced to do mock STAAR testing for hours and hours this entire week and next. This is obviously a disgrace for their education, but has also prevented my students from being able to have their inclusion time with their typically developing peers because their gen-ed classes are testing. An Individualized Education Program for kids with disabilities is a federal document that says what goals the children have and how much time they spend in inclusion. I can already tell you (even though I just started documenting it) that my students IEPs are being violated because of the ridiculous amount of time they have to miss inclusion because their General Ed peers are testing. We HAVE to start a mass movement against this madness. It is purely a violation of all childrens rights to a free and appropriate public education. Loathingly yours, Angry Special Education Teacher
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 03:24:10 +0000
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