Reply to Why do some parents dislike the SOLs so very much?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Former teacher here.

I get the impression that not all parents are upset about the tests themselves as much as they are upset about the amount of prep being done to get ready for the tests.  
And, I also think that some teachers and schools go WAAAYYYY overboard on the prep.
Much more appropriate to prep little bits along the way from the start of the school year instead of spending months (yes, months) getting kids ready for this series of tests. 
And, if done right, kids don’t even know it is test preparation.  Just authentically assessing students.   
It is a waste of instructional time and doing so much prep in March, April, and May tends to stress kids.  [/quote]

+1000. Way too much wasted class time. Wasted time to review. Wasted time to take the tests. Now they are pushing to retest kids who barely fail. And I hate that in ES my kids teachers basically stop teaching for the year after they are over (movie day, field trips, field day, planting the "teaching garden", etc).  At that point they should just let the kids out to enjoy summer, because this is another lost 3 weeks. All in all, the years the kids take 4 SOLs, they lose at least 5-6 weeks of instructional time. Over the course of 3-8th grade, that's an extra year of school. Also, it feels like the tests don't benefit the kids much-- they are mostly used to rank schools and evaluate teachers. And I don't like my ES age kids taking high stakes tests (at least in their teachers' eyes). Sure-- that's a part of school at some point. But IMO, not necessary before MS and HS. And teachers shouldn't need a standardized test to tell the that a child is struggling & needs extra help. That should show up & be addressed long before SOLs.

BTW: VA does significantly more testing that required by NCLB. [/quote]

This is OP, so the curriculum is over after the SOLs?  If so, that seems silly.  What are they going to do for the rest of the year?  My son is in the AAP program and they really rushed through certain things.  They could have added some extra days to the lessons and taken the SOLs the last week of school.  I completely agree with that concern.    About the prep, they did it for a week prior to each test.  That seemed ok with me.  Specially not having to do it at home.  My son just wants to get home and play so  I can only imagine how painful it would have been to do the prep at home.[/quote]

Curriculum is not over in any class we've had.  The last week or so is pretty loose, but it was when I was a kid too. I don't think what little dead time there is is a function of the tests.[/quote]

At our school they are doing different things that might not be covered on the SOL but are part of the year's curriculum. My child is learning cursive and grammar finally and there are more in class projects. They also have some end of year tests to study for in different subjects from what the SOL covered.[/quote]

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