Testing my patience

"Attention: The last seven weeks of school are officially canceled due to lack of interest."

This is what I would like to say if I could get my hands on the P.A system. It's true for the kids (I've noticed an exponential increase in wiggly-ness lately) and for the teachers.

Don't get me wrong, I still like teaching. But for the next seven weeks all we'll be doing is testing.

First, there's TPRI reading inventory. This takes 10 to 15 minutes per child. Then there's M-Class math, which takes 20 minutes per child. Then there's DRA (another reading test) which takes about 30 minutes per child.

All of these tests must be administered individually. So I go through the test (times 24) until I can recite it in my sleep, until I feel and sound like a robot.

Once that round of testing is over, we've got the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills), which is a real doozy.


If someone could just give me the remote control, I'll do us all a favor and fast forward to June 3rd.

11 comments:

Amy @ Juice Boxes + Crayolas said...

UGH that is so much testing! :( I am with you--come on June!!

JoAnna said...

Wow, thankfully in French,I don't have to do all of that testing. We have 2 rounds of state tests, one just passed and the other is coming, but that's it.

I'd like to make this announcement only for 7th grade. And only for the 80 minutes a day that I see them. And because it's absolutely their lack of interest. I work SO HARD to make them eek out even a syllable and all I get is crickets!!! I love my other classes. Can't someone come in and permanently dismiss 7th grade???

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

Ugh! That sounds terrible.

Janine said...

I just finished FAIR testing on Friday and now I move on to STAR testing, which isn't as bad because they do it on the computer on their own, except those who time out.....Then comes end of the year inventory tests just because we need one more indicator to tell us if they really got it.....

My students, I think, have officially checked out earlier then ever this year. I has to do with having spring break the first week of March, who made that decision???? I am silently counting the minutes until June 9th (which means June 6th will be here and my daughter will graduate, that I could wait on forever, but it is what it is). We shall overcome this, teachers unite!!!

Shell said...

We used to have our end of grade testing the very last week of school- it actually helped to keep us all focused. Then they switched it so that we would have a month left after that. It was so pointless!

Erin Janda Rawlings said...

Not fun!! Hang in there!

Elissa Newton said...

You know it's bad when my School-aholic daughter is dragging her feet in the morning. Testing is hard on everybody & there seems like there is so much more now days. {oh dear I just made myself old! "In my day sweetie testing took a week and the TV shut off at midnight."}

Sherri said...

Oh, I hear ya! And at my school, I'm not the one doing the testing, but since I do pull-out sessions I get "bumped" and have to scramble to reschedule lots of my morning students.

Dreading it....June 9th can't come quickly enough!

Bethany said...

You're lucky to be done June 3rd! There's a few schools out here that go until the 15th! Yuck!

Sandra said...

I'm not a teacher and I'm so ready to be done with it. I can't even imagine how you're feeling. I don't imagine the words "Hang in there" would be of much comfort?

Unknown said...

i'm a homeschooler and only have about 20 days left- and i am definitely ready to cancel classes. hurry up, summer!

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