Do schools care about failed SOLs?

[Anonymous]

Like do they have any motivation to help a child improve to the point where they pass their SOL? Or do they just not care?

[Anonymous]

Depends greatly on the level... in high school you need to get verified credit for graduation, and the standard way to do that is through SOLs. The motivation there is so they graduate and the school meets accreditation standards. In other levels, middle school and below, I'm not sure there's the same kind of focus

[Anonymous]

I think it makes the school look bad if there are too many fails.

[Anonymous]

Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

[Anonymous]

Yes they care. If a certain percentage of kids fail they get extra scrutiny and they hate it. However, are you white, a native English speaker, and not economically disadvantaged? If so, chances are that if the school is at risk of having too many kids fail, your kid isn’t in the group they are going to have to worry about (quality indicators like SOL pass rates are separated by subgroup). Enough white english-speaking economically stable kids pass so they don’t worry about that group. Schools care but they triage their interventions.

If you feel like your kid isn’t getting the support they need you probably need to seek outside help. And if you haven’t already, you should consider looking into learning disabilities. Schools do often have good supports for dyslexic kids and the special ed population is a sub group the district and state judges schools by so that group might get more attention.

[Anonymous]

yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they care. If a certain percentage of kids fail they get extra scrutiny and they hate it. However, are you white, a native English speaker, and not economically disadvantaged? If so, chances are that if the school is at risk of having too many kids fail, your kid isn’t in the group they are going to have to worry about (quality indicators like SOL pass rates are separated by subgroup). Enough white english-speaking economically stable kids pass so they don’t worry about that group. Schools care but they triage their interventions.

If you feel like your kid isn’t getting the support they need you probably need to seek outside help. And if you haven’t already, you should consider looking into learning disabilities. Schools do often have good supports for dyslexic kids and the special ed population is a sub group the district and state judges schools by so that group might get more attention.

By the way, I do not blame the teachers for this at all and the school might not be to blame either. There are a lot of new policies that sometimes are implemented in an extreme way, like inclusive classrooms and data-driven instruction, and that coupled with a lack of resources and, tbh, parental support, it is absolutely impossible to give every child the help they need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

Wow, what a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

Teacher here. I agree. The majority of fails are ESL students and LD students. I think it is ridiculous ESL kids even have to take it. There are kids not labeled ESL or LD but there are not a lot. Some of them are also former ELs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

Wow, what a jerk.

NP. People stating facts you don't like do not make them a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

Teacher here. I agree. The majority of fails are ESL students and LD students. I think it is ridiculous ESL kids even have to take it. There are kids not labeled ESL or LD but there are not a lot. Some of them are also former ELs.

I'm not a teacher but I agree also. Also, I believe that the standards are quite low. If a kid with with well-educated and highly-motivated parents fails an SOL, something is seriously wrong, and sadly it probably falls on the parent to figure out what it is. We need to be realistic about what schools and teachers can realistically do. How well does your child read, OP? Lots of kids are bad at it right now because of the impacts of balanced literacy and the growing pains of moving away from it.

[Anonymous]

When I taught in FCPS the only kids I ever had fail the 8th-grade science test (which covers 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade science) were ESOL kids who had been in the country for less than a year. For some crazy reason, the state insisted that kids take this SOL even though it was not a test of their science ability but rather a test of their ENGLISH reading skills. The vast majority of these students could have easily passed the test if given in their native language. Imagine if you, a native English speaker, had to take a science test in KOREAN with only minimal exposure to that language. You would not likely pass the test.
And yes, the school cared immensely when kids failed. It didn't matter that 600 kids passed (many passed advanced). They were mad and berated the teachers if 10 kids failed. It's one of the reasons I left the county.

[Anonymous]

the schools care about scores because it looks bad for teacher and school when there is a fail. They don't care if a kid fails