Career Change: Proctoring the ELA MCAS

This week was just... erm ... horrendous!  It started with my new car not starting on Monday morning and ending with me leaving school at 5:30 Friday night (2 hours later than usual). Okay, the car had a drained battery (probably from the cold. as it's been fine ever since), but after that crappy start, the week just went downhill.  

Due to waiting around for roadside assistance to come check on my car, I didn't get to school until almost an hour later than I usually do (I'm generally at school by 7:15), putting me way, way, way behind schedule. I arrived to find out that administration scheduled me to proctor the retest of the ELA MCAS (the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) test on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and that I would have to be trained on how to administer the test last period of the day Monday.  Therefore, I already had one class that fell behind because they did zero work during that period I was in the meeting.  Of course, because I learned about the proctoring last minute, all the plans that were put in place for Wednesday through Friday were for naught and I had to completely rewrite my plans, which of course, I had TONS of time to do.  (Still looking for that sarcasm font!)  This has put all of my classes way behind schedule.  It would have been nice to have gotten some advanced notice.

But what was the most disheartening part of the week was the actual proctoring of the test. What is the MCAS?  The MCAS is an untimed, standardized test that all Massachusetts public and charter school students have to take and pass in order to graduate from high school.  It consists of English, Math and a Science (Bio, Chem, or Physics) sessions.  This week it was the retest for those students who either failed or did so poorly that they were put on an educational proficiency plan to improve their test scores.  The English test consists of composition writing (Day 1) and reading comprehension (Days 2 and 3). 

I proctored 17 students for three days.  On day 1, the essay prompt was to pick a book that they have read in or out of school and discuss a struggle or obstacle that a character had to overcome. Here are some highlights of conversations during the composition writing:

•  "Miss, can I use the word 'crap'?"  "Ummm, I can't really help you, but I would suggest not." "What's another word I can use?" "There's a dictionary in front of you. Look it up!"
• "Miss, can you read my essay to see if it's any good?"  "No, I cannot!"
• "Miss, can you give me a suggestion of a book I can write about?"  "No!"

The "test" part was apparently beyond their understanding. But the worse part was the reading comprehension on days 2 and 3, which gave me a good indication of the kind of problems that I'm up against with teaching in my particular district. The first reading was a four page article about crop circles.  After approximately an hour and 15 minutes elapsed, most of the students were on either page 1 or 2 - a passage that I took me 10 minutes to read.  Now I know that I'm a good reader and 30 years older than these students, but over an hour and to still be on page 1 or 2?  Wow! That explains so much.  

My colleagues and I discuss these issues on a daily basis and we know exactly what a big problem is with these students. They do absolutely nothing for themselves and never have.  From the time they started school, teachers have been giving them graphic organizers, guided notes, reading aloud to them (including high school!), etc. These students have never had to do anything for themselves therefore, when it comes time to do these tests, it's ten times harder for them because they have never been forced to do anything and they quite bluntly tell their teachers that they're not going to do anything.

Whenever I try to give them independent work to do, they don't do it because they assume someone will come along and do the work for them. I can't really blame the students because people have been enabling them their whole lives and it's really hard to change that for 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds. But it's a clear indication of why I'm constantly battling students on a daily basis about doing work.  I'm trying to hold them to a higher standard than anyone else EVER has had them do and they just will try to wait it out because eventually someone will do it for them.  But I refuse.  So it's become a battle of wills between myself and my students. Guess who is going to win this battle?  <points to self> After all, I am a mix of Italian/German/English - you don't get much more stubborn than that combination.

I ended up spending an entire class period talking to my seniors about why I'm asking them to do some independent work.  After all, they're graduating in 3 months and many are planning on going to college.  And most of them have yet to crack open the copy of Jane Eyre which I assigned them. That's a problem!  Of course, all of them plan on being successful millionaires within 5 years of getting out of high school with no plan on how that's going to happen - I've asked. <sigh>

Longest and hardest week yet!  29 teaching days until Spring Break!!  Yay!!