Budget Woes, Testing Dilemmas and Math Standards

The governor released the budget yesterday and I've got a headache today. He thinks we need three more furlough days before June. He thinks wrong. We're already cancelling summer school. We're already doing more this year than we've ever done and expected to stay later and later and meet on non-meeting days with no compensation.

We also got a memo from the governor discussing legislation concerning The Race to the Top and merit pay - where half of our salary would come from student gains. Uh, really Sonny? Have you met these rascals I teach? They don't care if they write down a spelling assignment. I'm not tying my house payment and groceries to these incompentent rugrats.

While non-teachers think we've got it made, they've never dealt with the stress of getting these kids ready for a state test. And seriously, that is ALL education in this state has come down to - getting them ready to pass a test. (Remember that cheating scandal? The judge who sentenced one of them said he didn't agree with what had been done, but he understood the stress teachers and administrators found themselves under during testing.)

The passing score is only an 800 but this score is meaningless. Parents think that Johnny gets an 800 and all is right with the world when, in fact, Johnny makes an 800 and he's only mastered 40% of what he needs to know to go on to the next grade. What rattles my world is the fact that schools let everybody pass, no matter what the test score until they get to 5th grade and THEN they get KRAZY about their scores. I've got kids who failed the state test in math in 3rd and 4th grade and now we're expected to get them ready to pass the 5th grade test.

A few years ago, people complained that the state standards were a mile wide and an inch deep. Now, they're a mile wide and a mile deep. I have to teach 153 standards in math alone. Got that? I'm talking technology, fractions, geometry, data, decimals, and number sense. Yet I still have students counting on their damned fingers to add. Are you kidding me?

We were able to put a man on the moon in 1969 when I was starting 4th grade. That year, I learned my multiplication tables. I was not on the fast track to all this other stuff - I was able to learn (LEARN) these vital facts until they became a part of my being. Then we learned how to do multiplication problems. Then we learned division. And how to do long division.

We spent six months on fractions. And decimals.

In order to survive higher level math, students need to master - MASTER - everything about fractions and decimals. If you can't find an equivalent fraction or add decimals properly, you don't need to be finding the circumference of a circle when you're 10. There's no need for it.

When we put Neil Armstrong on the moon, we did it with guys who had mastered math like I did and they managed to do those higher level calculations with freaking slide rules.

We have overloaded and overwhelmed these kids with so much, they don't have a chance to master anything. Granted, there are always kids who get it and need to go on. But, there are so many kids who don't have any number sense that I am constantly banging my head against the wall, trying to fill in their gaps. And the gaps are pothole wide.

We have screwed over education so badly in this state and in this country, the ramifications are going to be devestating. The high school math in this district is senseless. People ask why my daughters go to private school while I teach in the public school. While the mess in discipline at the middle and high school was one issue, I also point to high school math in my district. My daughters are math geniuses (okay, maybe not geniuses, but they are girls and pretty damned great) and I was not about to let some idiots in the county mess up their futures. The spiral crap in high school math they teach confounds the best teachers.

How about we try something and see how it goes for a decade or so? We never see if something works for more than a year or two in this district? My school has decided to push Larry Bell's words this year. WTF? Who is Larry Bell and why does his take on test verbs really matter? Oh - wait. Next year, it won't. Sorry.

I have digressed, but I think I've made my point. The ship is sinking and no one is coming to the rescue.