The Test is Suffocating

Math State Tests are weeks away. I feel an impossible pressure on my shoulders. After giving our students a practice math test (no it wasn't by my choice and no it wasn't a past NY State test), and see how they did, I feel we'll never meet the standards in time. If I'd never looked at how they did on that test, there were multiple problems given to them over things that we haven't taught or won't be teaching before the state test. Even with this in mind, I still feel that I have let them down as their teacher.

That practice test needs to be pushed out of my mind, and I need to continue to teach my students. I have a plan to teach all the standards, without killing all possibility of my students learning. I know that some will not master the standards completely in the time we have allotted for the particular standard, so my team teacher and I will have to work with those students at other times to get them to where they need to be. Sadly, some of our students are so far behind, we cannot possibly get them to grade level by that test.

I hate that testing is on my brain. The school I teach at and schools across the city, the state, the country are not driven by anything but by testing. When will this change? When will we see this turn out to fail so many students... mine, for example. They are the ones who aren't getting educated outside my classroom usually (a typical for low income/poverty level students). They are the ones who are going to schools that are focused on teaching a test instead of actually teaching math, reading, science, social studies. They are the ones who may be only getting math instruction from now until March... the ones who were only getting reading instruction throughout the fall months into January. When will this change?