6. When In Doubt, Choose C

In honor of Charles who will take the ACT for the second time tomorrow at the age of 27, I've scrounged up a piece of satire I once wrote in light of standardized testing...

Morning Announcements: Testing Week

…with LIBERTY and JUSTICE for all…

Thank you, Tynika, for reminding us why we live in the BEST country in the world: the US of A. (1)

Now, remember students: on Wednesday we’ll choose our student of the month for April who will take over leading our pledge.

Get caught being a Conscientious Cougar!!  (2)

BBBBBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Teachers, please disregard the bell and hold your homeroom students.  I have some extremely important information in regards to our upcoming TESTING WEEK.  Students, at this time you must remain SEATED and SILENT.  And, teachers, please write down the names of any students talking during this time and I will deal with them personally.  This information is too important to miss.  I’ll also be making copies (3) of this list and distributing them tomorrow in your mailboxes.  For your classroom warm-up each week, please review these items with your students.

Cougars, we have over a month of school left, but now is the time to buckle down and try your very best because next week, as you know, is TESTING WEEK: the most important week of the academic year (4).  8^th graders – remember that if you score below a Basic, you will not be promoted to high school (5).  6^th and 7^th graders – the iLEAP is an indicator for how you will do in 8^th grade (6).  It BEHOOVES you to do your very best!

We need to work together to remember these very important rules for our testing environment.  Listen up:

1. NO CELL PHONES.  Students, cell phones aren’t allowed anyway and especially not this week.  We will take it away if we see one , so if you want to keep your cell phone safe, leave it at home! (7)

2. EAT BREAKFAST!  Students, it is IMPERATIVE that you eat a good breakfast each morning of testing week – you need that brain food!  Teachers, we’re asking you to please call your homeroom students’ homes to remind their parents to feed them this week. (8)

3. SCHOOL STARTS AT 7:50!  If you arrive each day of testing this week and on time, students, you’ll be eligible to win an ipod donated by Wal-Mart.  Don’t forget, students, school begins at 7:50. (9)

Now, students bear with me, I have just a few announcements for teachers only:

1. Teachers, remember that lesson plans are STILL DUE for testing week and are due on Friday.  Please indicate the stress-free activities you have planned for your classes.  Remember, we want the only academic focus to be the test for this week. (10)

2. Remember that I will be conducting “walk throughs” on Friday to check that your rooms are TEST SECURED.  Make sure all posters are taken down or covered up.  Not even one single letter may be visible.  Check with Ms. Bell in the art room if you need butcher paper. (11)

3. WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES!  Teachers, during TESTING week you are NOT to sit down at your desk or on any chair of any kind.  State monitors will be walking in and out and documenting your actions.  You are to circulate the room at all times. (12)

4. WEAR BRIGHT COLORS and DON’T TOUCH THE THERMOSTAT!  Ms. Mary Kay was kind enough to bring forth this cutting-edge research that says bright colors help stimulate thinking in students and allow for better test achievement.  Ms. S will be coming in special on Sunday to set the thermostat to an even 70 degrees, the temperature Ms. Mary Kay also read helps students to concentrate. (13)

5. Remember, teachers, to pick up your testing materials and number-two pencils before reporting to your classrooms each morning.  NEVER leave your testing materials alone or with someone else. (14)

6. I will be issuing updated homeroom rolls by Thursday.  You are each responsible for calling each student’s home to walk the parents through the MUSTS for this week – they must eat and they must come to school.  Ms. Mary Kay in the front office has been working diligently to get in touch with those students who have not had regular attendance. (15)

7. Friday we’ll be on an activity-schedule because we’re doing a dry run of testing week.  Since those students receiving testing accommodations may be confused as to where to report, we’ll run through it all a couple times if we have to. (16)

 

Okay, Cougars, it all comes down to this week.  Remember, achievement is 99% how hard you work and only 1% what you actually know.

 

Annotations:

1. This “best” country in the world I speak of has an achievement gap as deep and wide as a threatening and deadly canyon.  Out of 13 million American children growing up in poverty, half will graduate from high school.  Poor third graders are three grade levels behind their affluent white peers.  Those poor kids who do make it to high school read at an 8^th grade level.  And, one in ten of these poor kids will graduate from college.

2. Approximately five students in the entire school have been taught the meaning of the word “conscientious” by their English teacher.  Hell, I don’t even know if I know the definition.

3. IF the copy machine is working this week, I’ll gladly have Ms. Mary Kay in the front office copy these suckers for you – that’s her job, not mine.

4. Literally.  This is the one week that our school will ensure that this school runs “properly” but damnit we WILL NOT get fined or cited.

5. Louisiana state education policy prohibits a student who does not achieve a “Basic” overall score on his or her state test from high school promotion.  Approximately 40% of students in East Baton Rouge Parish fail it on the first try.  Statistics show that once a student is retained a grade, his or her chances of achieving a high school degree is halved. 

6. Actually, we need strong 6^th and 7^th grade scores to boost our overall school score.  If the No Child Left Behind monitors notice that our score has dropped, we’ll lose funding.  Eventually, if we continue to decline, we’ll be taken over by the state or shut down entirely.

7. When you arrive each day, we will pat you down and throw your things in a Wal-Mart shopping cart that we’ve borrowed for the week.  If you’re lucky, your parents will be allowed to sift through your things that have been dumped into a garbage sack and sit in a corner of the gymnasium AFTER testing week.  Hide your house key in your underwear.

8. Since we will call your home and beg your mama, auntie, granny to feed you this week.  And, since we’ll also have breakfast available for everyone (not just for the free/reduced lunchers).  And, since we’ll force you to clean your styrofoam plate because we believe that food makes the mind work better.  And, since we only feed you crappy, processed foods…you will most likely get diarrhea and ask to use the restroom in the middle of the test.  But, because testing security is so tight, you won’t be allowed out of the room until each student is finished.  Therefore, please try not to shit your pants.

9. For the first time all year, we will do everything possible to get you to school on time.  We’ll even reward you! 

10. Lesson plans usually roll in sometime Monday or Tuesday of the week you are teaching these concepts.  We will demand these on the correct due date this week because the state is watching us very closely.  Please bring your own DVD player from home and show videos for your students after the test.  Rent these videos with your own money.  Just remember to take your DVD player with you whenever you leave your room (to use the bathroom, to eat lunch, etc.) because we will not replace it if it is stolen.

11. I’m not joking about this.  Even cover up your computer keyboards (if you have one).  Not even a single letter may be visible to the students or the state testing security monitors will shut down your room as a testing site and then they will fine us money that we do not have. 

12. I know you sit at your desk for 3/4ths of a regular day.  Well, get those orthopedics out, ladies.  If you’re caught sitting down during the test by a testing security monitor, I will personally add a letter to your permanent file.

13. Put away those grays and tans!  Someone read somewhere once that bright colors stimulate thinking and a certain temperature will ensure excellent performance!  Your students will be so taken aback at your ridiculously bright outfit that it will take them twenty minutes to fill in the bubbles of their last name.  The temperature change will also distract them, and they’ll spend the entire test wondering why it isn’t freeeeezing or unbearably hot.  Wait, the AC will actually work (at a respectable temperature/at all) this week?

14. If you need to take a shit, those tests better be on your lap as you sit on the toilet.  If I see them left by the sink and they get wet, I might fire you.

15. Up until now, we don’t care about those students who have stopped coming to school or who show up once a week.  It doesn’t matter that they haven’t been learning all year.  What matters is that their completed test (of randomly bubbled letters) will earn us some points.  But, if they don’t show up at all, we receive a zero and our overall score will go down.  Remember to tell these students that this is the ONLY week they need to come to school everyday.  Tell them we won’t bother them again until next year at this time.

16. This is one week in which the special education students will actually receive appropriate accommodations/modifications.  This foreign small group setting and the sound of a teacher actually reading the questions aloud will confuse the hell out of them.  These accommodations (required by law) are supposed to help these students achieve like the “regular” kids, but this new, strange format will only throw them off.