Thursday, April 24, 2014

CRCT Testing - Should You Refuse To Let Your Child Be Tested #crcttesting2014

Georgia students have finished taking the CRCT, parents and their kids are glad it's over. Every year teachers, parents and kids scramble to ensure everyone is ready for testing. The debate of standardized testing has gone on for years but this year is slightly different. This year a Marietta couple refused to let their 3rd and 5th grader take the CRCT see http://tiny.cc/crct-testing. A lot of parents and students mumble and grumble about the fact that 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders have to pass the Georgia CRCT to be promoted to the next grade. But few parents, if any, have refused to let their child (dren) be tested. I'm not even sure if anyone thought they had an option.

Should you refuse to let your child take the CRCT? The million dollar question is, why can't the tests taken during the school year determine if a student can be promoted to the next grade? Many feel all the work done and good grades given during the year has no merit if the CRCT is the only measurement used for promotion of 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders. And now with all the news coverage of the Marietta couple refusing to let their children be tested and the school's response to such a request, one may wonder if the state of Georgia is going to review this mandate.  

Yes we do need to ensure that our children know how to read and understand concepts, know how to add, subtract, multiply,divide and understand the process of math. Yes it is critical that our Elementary students be properly prepared for Middle School and our Middle School students be properly prepared for High School, I don't think anyone would argue that fact. However there has to be a way to measure, to ensure that students are capable of performing at the next level without everything "riding" on one test. There has to be a better way to reward schools, principals, and teachers whose students perform well. There has to be a better way to link low performance accountibility.

The main goal of the school system is to educate our children, to help them possess enough knowledge to become productive citizens. Let's find a way to do that. Let's not have a repeat of teachers, principals and other school authorities cheating on the CRCT in order to retain their jobs. Let's not promote test anxiety by having everything "ride" on one test. Let's find a way to hold the students as well as the teachers and principals accountable for performance through out the entire year. It may be that students receive tests that are weighted greater than others, I'm not sure. But let's start the dialogue NOW.           

I'm Denise Smith and that's my two cents. What's yours?

P.Denise Smith is a Tutor for grades k-12 and 1st year college students
You can learn more about P.Denise Smith at
www.tutorbydenise.com 
twitter.com/tutorbydenise
www.blogtalkradio.com/thetutorwizard 




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