Why Can't I Just Teach?

Today was my first day back since I was out, and let's just say my desk was a little cluttered. I also found out today that we lost one student, and gained another. What does that bring the total up to now - I've lost count.

That's not all - Monday night one of the 6th grade Science teachers resigned. He sent the principal an email letting her know that he wasn't coming back to school. On one hand, I understand how he must have felt overwhelmed and underappreciated. But on the other, what a freakin' jerk! Are you kidding me? He's just going to up and leave the 9th week of school?! Like that's going to solve anything - now his class has a long-term sub until they can hire someone new. Then that person has to go through a learning curve, so at best, the students in that class will only be about 8-10 weeks behind come Winter Break!

I'll stop that rant right there, because it's actually not what I wanted to tell you about. I found out today that I have to scrap my lesson for next Wednesday because the entire school will be in TAKS-mode. TAKS is the "Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills" and serves as our "high-stakes exam." Since we are a Title I school who didn't pass our AYP (Annual Yearly Progress, a part of 'No Child Left Behind') last year, we HAVE to pass the TAKS in every subject this year, or risk the state taking over our school.

So, this means that on 5 occasions this year, every teacher in the building will be administering either a math or reading TAKS test (full-length) to prepare our students to take the actual TAKS tests in February. This means that on those days, no teacher will be able to actually teach the material that we were hired to teach; that no teacher will be able to actually teach the material that our kids need to know in order to pass the TAKS test; that no teacher will actually be able to do the one thing that we are expected, but never allowed, to do - TEACH!

I was furious when I learned of this information this morning - ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! My kids have a Science Fair in 3 weeks and a Science benchmark exam administered by the district in 8 weeks - and right now we're behind! This goes without mentioning the fact that poor Social Studies has been sacrificed for about 2 weeks now so that we can catch up in Science - the one subject that is tested of the two. But now, I'm expected to just put all that on hold a day - AN ENTIRE DAY - so that they can practice reading? I THOUGHT THAT WAS WHAT READING CLASS WAS FOR!

I know you might be saying, "But Matthew, it's only one day." That's true, but that one day is a Wednesday. And that means that the entire week will be a sacrifice because whatever we learn on Monday and Tuesday will be put on hold for Wednesday, then I'll spend all of Thursday reviewing what we learned Monday and Tuesday and then it's Friday, which is suppossed to be test day. By the way, there is no substantive material that can be taught in two days. I NEED FULL WEEKS HERE!

I wrote a kind of nasty email to one of the APs, expressing my discontent with the situation, but doing so in a manner that would allow me to return to work tomorrow. I think she got the message, but it's not going to change anything.

The one ray of hope in all this is that I was appointed to the school committee that is able to make executive decisions about things like this. Granted, this is probably a district mandate, but at least I can bring it up at the end of the year so that I can at least get the administration to understand how little sense this makes.

A test is a test is a test. The more we practice for the test, the less teaching we can actually do. So in February, our kids will be very familiar with the layout of the test and how to bubble-in answers on a Scantron, but will have no idea WHAT THE ACTUAL ANSWERS ARE!