More Testing Blahs.

As some of you know, I'm not a great fan of the NLCB testing. I should be more clear here - I don't mind the tests themselves - they're fine tests.

What I dislike is the uses that the results are put to and the interpretations and decision based on the results.

To wit, we gave the writing test today and one of the better students academically was talking about her essay. The topic was something by Gandhi - be mellow and don't stress out - and she wrote a polemic on the testing of students and the idiocy of the state's analysis of results. Completely off topic, no?

So, a fairly decent essay that is completely off-topic will be considered a 0. Our principal will discuss the results later in the year and say things like "We should put in our action plans to align our curriculum better to the GLEs / state standards / Frameworks. We must motivate our students to do better."

Welllll. No.

Our curriculum might need adjusting, but this is not a good reason why. These kids don't care about the test and their results will be meaningless.