Hold My Chalk

If you have ever had the opportunity to watch our legislators in action you might walk out of there asking that question.  If you ask them, everyone will tell you they do care about kids.  When you watch them, you learn differently.  I have been a lifelong Republican, but I have always held the belief that you vote for the person, not the party.  Joe Dorman, Katie Henke, Scott Inman, Mike Shelton, Colby Schwartz and others all earned some respect for their defense of students. During the most recent debate in regards to HB 2625 several members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives shared that when they passed the amendments to the Reading Sufficiency Act in 2011, they did so thinking it was good for kids.  Few of them consulted educators about it or did their research.  They simply looked to Florida and ALEC for their ideas.  They didn't bother to see if it was truly successful.  Yes there were some successes in Florida, but for the most part i...

Now that the Effective Teacher Assessments are complete we can move on to more meaningful work in public education.  You know what I am referring to, field tests  item tryouts.  The students at my school were blessed with the opportunity to " try out " the fourth grade math questions and the third grade writing assessment. The fourth grade assessment seems pretty straightforward.  The exception, compared to previous years, is the number of questions.  Normally the testing company will add ten questions on the regular test.  This time, since it is a separate test from a different company, there are more than twenty questions.  No big deal, right?  Wrong! We are required to treat this just like the regular assessment.  This means we need a moderator for every administrator of the test.  During testing we have to completely turn our schedule on its ear every day of testing.  Just to break down the schedule for you, it takes third grade...