Check out E.R. Educators to the Rescue

Please take a minute and “LIKE” E.R. Educators to the Rescue on Facebook. This page was developed by two Delaware public school teachers. Below is information about their page.

This page is for public education teachers and those who support public education in Delaware. We sincerely want to improve the learning experiences of our students/children.

This page is meant to provide information all public school teachers and parents must know about testing; the who, what, when, where, why and hows of its creation, its longevity and the intensity that never lets up.

Our classrooms have transformed from actively engaging, creativity-based, vibrant learning environments that promote learning and foster a love of learning to a monotone atmosphere of digitalized learning, scripted lesson plans, assessment-laden daily activities. A severe disconnect from the joys of learning and discovery has occurred. The lights have gone out in our classrooms. Young children especially need interaction with a human teacher and one another, not a computer or tablet for a large portion of their day. They need to hear and see and feel and do and experience and observe. High-stakes testing has robbed us of our profession and taken the joy from teaching and from learning.

This intent of this page is to be nonpartisan and will support any and all political figures that provide assistance in helping to rescue our students from the over-use and developmentally inappropriateness of high stakes testing.

Simply put, you can hold schools, their teachers and administrators accountable for their job duties and end high-stakes standardized testing.

Join our group, get informed and start taking action. We ask all members to maintain conversations and comments to a professional level. If you fail to do so, you will be dismissed from the group and all offensive material will be deleted.

“Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better.” Maya Angelou

SJR #2 – Assessment Inventory Committee Meeting Update

I attended the Assessment Inventory Meeting this week–I am not sure what direction the committee is heading. I appreciate the open discussion and the questions that were being asked by some committee members. The next meeting will be February 22, 2016 from 4:00 to 6:00 – Townsend Building.

Dr. Terri Hodges with the Delaware PTA and Natalie Avini Ganc, a Delaware teacher, both made public comments at the end. They commented about how there are no parents or classroom teachers serving on the committee. When I addressed the committee, I told the committee that I agreed with Dr. Hodges and Ms. Ganc’s comments. I also asked the following question and asked for the DOE to get back to me and the committee with an answer:

We are constantly comparing schools and their state assessment scores. I asked if there was data available showing which schools test in March, April, and May? With an elementary school that tests in May, the school’s scores are compared to another elementary school that tests their students in March. The elementary school that tests in May has two additional months of instruction time compared to the elementary school that tests in March.  One would assume that a school that tests in March probably has no choice because of the size of their school; the school needs to start testing early on in order to get all of their students tested.

Example: Washington T Booker Elementary School has 304 students and no 5th grade. Warner Elementary School has 529 students and 5th grade. Warner has 200+ more students than Washington T Booker and an additional grade level to test.

I am interested in seeing when schools are testing and if, certain schools are testing later, are their state assessment scores better compared to the ones who are testing earlier? Also, does size of a school matter when it comes to state assessment scores? It would be interesting to see data showing size of school and test dates and see if there is a correlation between the two.

View the entire bill, click here – SJR #2.