Two weeks ago we began testing season at my school. Our goal this year is to increase our scores in English by 20 points and Math by 7. Since I have very little to do with the math test, I will not discuss it except to say that I hope our students perform well on it. Our English testing scores last year were dreadful by comparison to the other high schools in our district and we were taken to task by our Superintendent in regards to our less than stellar performance as a result. It was the first time really that our school has faced the reality of poor results. I can't speak for the rest of the school but these results had me reeling. I was angry, frustrated, embarrassed, and ashamed of our performance. There was some finger-pointing, not at individuals but at our circumstances, as we were going through some changes administratively and had an accreditation visit. I felt like these were easy cop-outs and I understood why our admin team was making them but the bottom line was, we stunk and we needed to make changes if we were going to improve our scores.
I know that for many who read this blog the focus on a test score sends you into a tailspin as we know that the test scores are not the end all be all of an education but I have to say, at the end of the day, test scores matter to people whether they should or not. So, what were we going to do? We needed to change our practices pedagogically. We were still teaching for the 20th century, not the 21st. We were focused on a curriculum (in high school these are the pieces of text we teach, not a how to) and covering everything (old standards), instead of having student dig deeply into the texts (new standards) and risking perhaps, running out of time for the old texts. We needed to be united in our quest for improvement, but how? We decided to come together and have a day where we explored our expectations as a department for what students should be able to do from year to year (with the standards in mind) but also bearing in mind what the standards aren't expecting that we as teachers are. For example, we have department writing standards that some people weren't even aware of, yikes! We did this and we built common finals for each grade level using SchoolCity and the results were astounding. Our students did not perform well. It was an eye-opener for all of us. Rather than wallow in our results we made a plan for how we were going to support students to improve these areas of in need of growth. We got to work. Collaborating on assignments that would be beneficial to students both short and long term. Really just taking the time to focus on improving the skills our students would need, not just for the test, but for the rest of their lives. I do not know if our scores will reflect the changes we made but I'm confident they did. Regardless of the results, I am really proud of my students. We've faced incredible obstacles this year and we just keep pushing forward.
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AuthorMy name is Sarah Todd and I teach freshmen and junior English in Southern California. Archives
August 2018
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