For my student teaching placement, I taught at a title I school. This school district is located in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and has a very depressed community. While teaching there, I heard a lot of comments like “this is where all the bad kids are sent” and “don’t expect any help from parents, they don’t care.” It was hard to see. I taught second grade with my mentor teacher and it was an amazing learning experience for me. I soon realized though, that those comments above were true. A lot of the parents are not involved in their students school and home life. The impact is tremendous in the classroom. A lot of my students suffered from horrible at home experiences but this is just how it was. As teachers, my mentor and I reported and documented everything. Unfortunately, CPS had already investigated a lot of these cases but there was nowhere for these kids to go. No support and very limited resources. A lot of these students lived with grandparents or in foster homes because their parents were in jail, too young to care or addicted to drugs. These students all had a lot of stress in their young little lives.
In addition to this at home stress came the stress of performance in school. I was surprised to see that this school had a canned curriculum and focused a lot on assessments. These students are so young and the resources are so scarce that it was hard to force such pressure on these young kids. One of the major things I noticed about this curriculum is that everything fell to the teacher. The responsibility is huge and the expectations are extremely high. Yet there is not a lot of differentiation in the lessons being taught. This was very hard for me to see and I spent most of my time there trying to help the students by differentiation or by giving them alternate ways to finish assessments. Unfortunately in a school with limited resources, it’s hard for a teacher to find the time to do this when they are on their own. The only reason this worked out for my situation was because it was both my mentor and I doing this work together to try and help our students. The pressures for these students was unbearable to witness. Since the curriculum is canned, the students have to take the assessments when they are planned. This does not account for the students who miss school due to outside factors, or the students who need a little extra help. The students would break down or act out. If they did not complete these assessments then there are punishments. Recess taken, freeplay taken and calls home. Very stressful.
For the teacher, it’s just as stressful. You see your student struggling and there is not much you can do to help if you are on your own. There are expectations set by the school and the district that you have to comply with to keep your job and still be considered favorable as a teacher. The effects of these assessments on the students, teachers, school and district is nothing short of stressful for everyone. It’s very hard because this is an Elementary school where the students have so much going on outside of school. The standards are so high yet they just keep pushing the kids to the next level. Even if they do poorly. They just do not have the resources to help those students who get left behind. When the student is assessed and they need help, a lot of the parents in this community refuse to have their student get any “extra or special” help, due to the stigma. It’s a lose lose situation in this school district and it’s hard to see.
I compared my findings of my school where I did student teaching with the school where I live now. I live in the Bay Area in California and looked into the school district in Los Gatos and Campbell. High stakes assessments there are considered highly amongst the students, families, teachers, schools and districts as a positive. The high stakes in these districts help to enforce motivation and involvement from families and the school. High stakes assessments are viewed as an intervention tool. I think that this is where The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers comes into play. The districts that I looked into down here in California have the resources to make high stakes learning benefit the students and the schools. The students are able to get the help they need where they need it and the school has the resources to do this. This is the only situation where I think the high stakes can work. Teachers are valued highly and judging by the public records of compensation they are rewarded for their students performance. Not all school are like this but these two districts have phenomenal ratings and really utilize all they have to benefit their students. I really feel that these two districts value their teachers which prompts an amazing performance and less burnout. It’s incredibly sad to compare these districts with the one I did my student teaching at in Oregon. The teachers are burnt out, the students are stressed and don’t get the help they need and it just seems like a vicious cycle.
Works Cited
About. (n.d.). Retrieved June 6, 2016, from http://www.parcconline.org/about
The Past, Present And Future Of High-Stakes Testing. (n.d.). Retrieved June 6, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/01/22/377438689/the-past-present-and-future-of-high-stakes-testing
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