I heard a story from a teacher today about one of her students who took the Standards of Learning (SOL) test recently. This student came in on the morning of the test and promptly told her teacher that she was going to fail the SOL. Now just a few days earlier this student had taken a practice SOL and scored well into the 500s. (For those of you who are not familiar with Virginia's testing system you need a 400 to pass and 600 is the max score.) This student had solid grades all year and had demonstrated time and time again that she knew the information she was being taught. She had learned that year.
How do you think that student did on her SOL test?
She didn't pass. You know why? She had a fight with her grandmother that morning, which happened to be the morning that she took the SOL test. Her mind that morning was on anything but the test.
Was that SOL test an accurate reflection of this students knowledge?
Was it an accurate reflection of the teachers performance with that student?
I hope I live to see a better system put in place to judge the quality of our teachers and our schools.
What do you think?
Thank you for reading.
Tom -
ReplyDeleteI completely understand the point. At the same time, this is one of those few circumstances where school IS like the real world. If you're up for an interview - or need to give a critical presentation, or any number of other things - nobody cares what happened to you that morning.
Is it "fair?" No, not at all. But I guess my point is that life isn't either...
I get your point when it comes to the student, but what about the teacher or the school? They are impacted by this student's failure as well and possibly in ways that are much more significant.
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