Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle, the latest craziness in our area schools? It seems that a teacher took 22 days off back in February, 10 of them unpaid, to tape “The Bachelor”. Now? Because two parents complained, they are reassigning the Principal for letting her take the time off. The parents complained that the teacher being out was disruptive to the classroom; isn’t it more disruptive to the school as a whole to have to readjust to a new principal? And if the thought is that what she did was so wrong you have to move her, then isn’t it wrong for the people at the other school to end up with her there? I mean, they didn’t do anything to deserve a switch.
My favorite quote of the whole article might just be the last one: “Parent Raquel Flores said it “was very disruptive” to have Alchalabi gone while her students were preparing to take a TAKS test.”
You are not supposed to PREPARE for the test. The whole point of the test is to test the students and see what they have learned, to assess if the school is teaching up to standards. The fact that they teach the test, and that parents expect them to do so, proves that the whole thing is very, very flawed. It all just leaves me shaking my head…
10 replies on “Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places…”
Knowing far too much about school systems, I will tell you this much — at least here I NYC, and I suspect elsewhere, there are state-wide mandated tests and in many of the “economically disadvantaged” areas, the teachers really don’t to much but teach to the tests to give the kids the best chance of passing and therefore keeping the schools funding rates where they should be and not endangering a school closing.
That said, it’s idiotic to think that one teacher having a 3 week leave of absence could possibly make that big of a difference to anyone.
I seriously hate dealing with school issues (whatever level, public, private, elementary through university) mainly because the culture of political correctness seems to trump everything else, and too many people feel too entitled. And the poor teachers are so underpaid, who can blame the woman for going on a reality show to pick up some extra bucks.
Sheesh.
Sadly, in practice the majority of classroom energy seems to be devoted to the TAKS test. My friend is a kindergarten teacher and even they have to prepare their kids for this nonsense.
I miss the days when all we had to deal with was the CTBS/Iowa test. No teaching to those at all.
Do NOT even get me started on the whole “teaching to the TAKS” issue. As a mother of 2, I have knock down, drag out arguments with teacher friends about the fact that I’m 30 seconds away from homeschooling my kids. I was an engineering major and have umpteen science and math classes under my belt and tudored throughout middle and high school as well as college.
I get very upset at the homework that my daughter has brought home since kindergarten (she’s now in 3rd grade-100% on the language section btw) that has “TAKS sec blah, blah, blah (insert numbers here) in big bold face black letters accross the top. Besides the fact that she has learned 3 different systems to solve math problems because the district keeps changing the curriculum every year.
Sorry Christine, I’ll get off my soap box now.
I hate the TAKS test. I hated that stuff when I was in school (back when it was TAAS), but it’s WAY worse now than it was then. My son is in 2nd grade, and hasn’t had to take the test yet, but they’ve sure been teaching him about it since he was probably in Kindergarten. I don’t think kids learn anything other than what will be on those tests.
We have SOLS here, which sounds like the same thing as your TAKS tests, and the schools are the same way. Instead of teaching and then testing what the students learned, they spend the whole year teaching exactly what is on the test so the students will pass. And that’s even in the *good* school districts.
As a teacher, I agree with you. Too much emphasis is placed by administration on the tests, and many schools teach to them just as you said. I think the principal and the teacher involved both made bad calls, but there is no reason to move either of them now. It should be done at the end of the year when everything is topsy-turvy anyway. I really dislike school politics!
(Shaking head, in disbelief.)
Christine, Christine, Christine… do you actually expect that anything that any school districts do to make sense?
The school system traditionally is the most manipulate governmental entity. As such, it is, in general, pretty flaky. The really surprise is that anyone can learn anything substantial.
I’m for vouchers, (and I have been for a long time.) Private schools are not mandated to do anything that is the governmental program de jour. And also, they can actually teach real information, not just the stuff on the test. As well as, in a competitive market, if you don’t like your private school, you can go somewhere else – not so with public schools.
Also, if the principal is gone from this school, my guess is that s/he was probably already his/her way out and the powers that be were just using the slutty/teacher thing as an excuse.
I would love it if my teacher was on one of those shows and the next phone call to you would have been, “Christine, did you just see Ms. Blah Blah dry humping that guy in the hot tub ?!? That was so funny! And then she was so drunk, she barfed in his mouth while she was making out.”
In Washington State, we had the WASL and many teachers not only taught to the WASL, they developed curriculums to do so. Fortunately, the DOE did away with that test last year and are now using a fill in test that seems to be more like finals and less like philosophy (why does 2 + 2 = 4!!!, jeez really!).
@JW That’s pretty gross!! XD
Its the quality of good parents that they keep a close eye on their children education as well as on their other activities. I think doing a regular check on the standard and quality of education that your child is gaining from his school is necessary and for that doing a test is the best way to find it out. Thanks for posting.