I am not sure when you do your standardized testing for your school, but in the Pacific Southwest District of the LC-MS we are in our first week of test taking mode.  Let me tell you first off how stressful this time period can be.  A little history of why are we doing testing now instead of spring time.  We used to have spring time testing.  The last two years it has been switched to fall testing.  The main reason is to help the teacher who has the child right now to be able to better serve them, but more importantly it takes away Pay for Grades mentality of administration or foundation.  Were a teacher will get paid a bonus for having higher test scores.  Overall students do not know as much as they did when it was in the spring (the test is the same) but how it is assessed and analyzed is different now.  No longer it looks as this is what your child knows.  We look at it as this is what your child does not know and where we need to work extra hard.  It is a win win situation.  But it is stressful.

Third grade is the first year they have to fill in bubbles for the entire test.  They also have to read all the questions on their own.  Some of my students are not able to sound out some of the words on the test right now.  Some of them get very frustrated, because they are still very immature when it comes to test taking etiquette.  This year with 13 boys all very hyperactive it has been a challenge to do this testing so early in the year.  I have students who have to stand up to work, students who chew on their shirts to work, and students who have to talk because they can’t focus on their work.  I make my students fill out their own names and fill in the bubbles so they can learn and if they make a mistake now, it can be easily fixed than if they make a mistake on the test.  Filling in our name and filling in the correct bubbles is a two hour process!

The next challenge is having students wanting to ask questions during the test.  They want me tell them what words mean or how to say a word.  But, I can’t! So they get upset and lose concentration.  Finally students get mad if time is up and they did not finish.  I try to remind them that it is better to have an empty circle than guess and get it wrong.

I am nervous about the results.  I have some students that will for sure sway the class average.  Our school board is still stuck on how important these scores are.  Which I rather give my students something to design, create, test their creation, and then tell me about it, what was good, what didn’t work than a standardized test.

If you are doing testing right now, may God be with you !  If you have a few months before you have to worry, God bless you.