Why Why Why Are We Doing This?

Before you decide to read further, I have had one of those days where I walked away from work simply asking myself, "Why?" And what I mean by this is why on earth are we doing what we did today at my campus. Now, some of you may be thinking to yourself, "What is he talking about?" So answer your curiosity, we simply conducted the re-takes for the end of course assessment for mathematics. In addition, when I use the term "we" I am essentially talking about "we the people" and not "we the staff of Mountain View." Yes I know that as a public school system, we need to follow the federal regulations that essentially force us to conduct standardized testing. But where I am on the edge with near insanity, is over my basic questions of why?  

Indeed the Cowboy in Chief, W, signed this requirement into law while the late Ted Kennedy stood beside him (hoping that this was going to "fully fund" education) clapping his hands. Hey, how could this be bad if they worked together right? Well I digress and need to get back to the point of this rant, which is, I essentially participated in something that I do not believe is effective, worth the money, indicative of how teachers perform and essentially necessary at all.

When I got to work today, I went to my assigned location, the North Gymnasium. "Interesting location," I pondered while I walked down the barely lit up hallway with white painted walls with the words "Thunder Power" painted in bright royal blue paint with silver outlining covering the majority of the bricks found within it. Once I entered the gym, all I can say was "Oh my!" There I saw a sight that I remember seeing in old 80s movies where high school students on a mass scale took standardized tests. tables set in a 10 by 7 grid with two seats each set opposite of each other. One of my colleagues said to me, "Funny how this will only fit 140 kids where there are 170 taking the test."

I was in awe. I quickly responded, "Where the heck will the rest of them go?" I never thought I was going to see this in my somewhat short career. Every time we have conducted re-takes for the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) and the HSPE (High School Proficiency Examination) we had a number suitable locations on campus to have somewhere around 25 kids per room and only like 50 kids needing to retake it. But 170? We did that bad? I also asked "How are we going to do this? Its supposed to start at 7:45 and now its 7:35 and there are no kids here yet."

"I guess we will have to see," I was told. Soon enough, the administrator who was in charge showed up with all of the test booklets, acetates (the blue things that contain a ruler and compass in an object the same size of a piece of paper), pencils and following him were the rest of my compatriots with cases of calculators. "Hey Phil, start getting the pencils and acetates on the tables," I was told.

"No problem I responded." So off I went. I grabbed a grip full of acetates and started to mope around the gym placing two on every table. When I got to the first table I noticed these very thin pieces of paper taped to them. Once I got close, I noticed that it had each kids name on them. "Great idea," I though to myself sarcastically, "this is going to make this task even more eventful." And as I finished my first stack of acetates, I found the school admin that was responsible for this and asked, "Hey is there a seating chart/map for kids so they can find their seat?" Guess what I was told? If you said no you are correct. By this point I had one other person helping me lay out the materials. This took us about 30 minutes and by that time there was a huge line of kids, slowly getting signed in and checking out calculators and wondering about trying to find their seats. I began attempting to assist kids to find their seat. Now this should have been easy as pie right? No. It had to be difficult because there were kids who for some reason did not get an assigned seat. They were to go to the library. 

By this time, I was stressed. How were we to conduct an assessment, one meant to be contained, free of interruptions and irregularities? This was a mess. This was a train wreck waiting to happen and for some sick reason, I obsessed over how this was going to end. And to my surprise it was not that bad but there were some observations during the test that still, as I write these words baffle me. We had kids pouring in as late as 10 AM to start the test. There were kids who after 30 minutes claiming they were done (ya right!). I even escorted kids to the bathroom, in the 12th grade who still could not pass this test. Even two of them admitted they passed their math classes as freshman and sophomores but not the test and that they had not been in a math class since 10th grade!

OK...I am getting a bit worked up and need to calm down. But is this what the law says we need to do? Is this the kids fault that they have not chosen to stay in math class to pass this test? What is going on? I know its not my administrator's fault about how we had to do this today. This was his only option. There was nowhere else to do this. But, how could under these conditions could a student get the optimal outcome and essentially finally meet the level considered appropriate for passing? How much money was spent by the state on this session? Was this worth it? These were just a few questions still running through my head.

Why why why why are we doing this? Who knows. But from what I am told, its because we have to.