This school year. It has definitely been one I'll never forget. But tomorrow is the LAST day for students. I really thought that was enough. But then I got the call I had been dreading - STAAR results. Everyone in the state of Texas has an opinion on STAAR and I have yet to hear a good one. STAAR is supposed to measure student performance. To prove whether or not a student has mastered the subject material. And while we can all agree that the accountability has to be there, we ALL agree that standardized tests are not the way to get it. In fact, the ONLY ones who do are state legislators and Pearson. Last year, my results were not stellar. I ended the school year depressed, and feeling like a failure. You see, whether we want to admit it or not, teachers are given ownership of their students' results...when they're bad. When you succeed, you get a pat on the back, and you get to hear the accolades of what the district and everyone else did to get you there, even if you never see one other person in your room ALL YEAR LONG. Or even worse, told that the test was easy - that must be why your students did well.
No one hesitated to come to me when the scores were less than perfect. Where were my tutorial logs? What did I do? What was wrong - with me? And there are teachers being confronted with those questions right now as we speak. When I moved districts and entered one of the largest districts in the nation, it didn't take me long to figure out that this is a number game. Produce the numbers or sink. To compound this, I somehow landed a job at one of the up and coming schools in that district and it was crystal clear that the results - good or bad would be all on me. Benchmark after benchmark, results came back that were not promising. I mean, I got my first gray hair this year and I partially blame that stupid test. I freaked out at home, got frustrated at work. I was one massive hot mess. I was in a new subject, teaching AP for the first time, and would be setting the bar for the school's first EOC on that level. I know the students are more than a number. I know I am more than a number. But in the end, people I didn't know would look at a number on a piece of paper and decide if I was a good teacher and if my students were "smart". (And THAT is what made me try for a spot at a private school.)
I am proud to report that 100% of my students passed. I give them full credit. Because by the time they took that test, I was emptied. I had done everything in my power to get them ready and was still AFRAID that it wouldn't be enough. The morning they took the STAAR, I prayed that God would just let them do they best they could and give me the courage to just accept whatever percentage came out of that. I didn't want another year of sub-par scores on my record as a teacher. I didn't want the students to have to face summer school and retests so they could graduate. And I had secretly decided that a bad performance would mark the end of my teaching career, because the tests were showing I was not a "good" teacher. I was going to use the next year to figure out a new career path.
I went through all this to say one thing - if your scores were not what you wanted or were expecting, this does NOT make you the failure. It is a failure of the state system. My desire to help students this year was no different than last year. My knowledge of history was not greater (in fact, it was less - being my first year in U.S. and AP). My teaching methods hadn't changed. Students want to pass those tests. There is not one student who goes into a state test and purposefully fails the test. And they are no more failures than we (teachers) are when the scores are bad. There are bad teachers, sure, but the STAAR doesn't point them out any better than the TAKS test did. It just discourages those who DO care. I also don't want to belittle success stories. Those girls were obviously doing some hard, behind-the-scenes work to throw out a number like that, and I am beyond proud of them.
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