Esto es un abuso!

Henderson, one of my most intelligent and astute seventh graders, put it so bluntly: this is abuse! He was referring to one of the many asinine things that happened at my school last week. Here is a short summary of the ridiculousness of the week:

1. Students at my school take Princeton Review Exams. This test is given twice a year to measure students’ growth and to give teachers insight into what skills the students are deficient in. Theoretically I am all for this test, as it makes planning easier on the part of the teacher.

Most of the students in my homeroom—the 7th grade bilingual class—have been in the country for less than five years meaning that they are exempt from the mainstream standardized tests. I think the major issue is that most of them are nowhere near a 7th grade reading level in English. In the past, the students who were exempt were not required to take the English Princeton Review test, but do take the Math test in Spanish. Those students who are more proficient in English, and are required to take the test because of their tenure in the US do take both in English. Very logical, don’t you think?

Apparently it was a decision of the administration that “no child be left untested” meaning that all students regardless of their exemption status had to take the test. So I had to sit there and administer the English test on Wednesday to 36 students, about 10 of which actually could read the passages and understand the questions, and the other 26 kids who are fresh off the boat were pretty clueless. Being determined and hard working students, they sat there and tried to understand as much as possible and eliminate answer choices, but as time when on, I could see their frustration building. Poor little Henderson, who has made great strides in English this year, told me that after that horrendous hour, he did not want to read or look at words for the rest of the day. I felt his pain and let him draw instead of read until the others were finished with their test.

2. Field Testing.
Along with the Princeton Review tests, all ESL students (almost 300 at my school) are required to take a field test. What does that mean? They have to take a shortened version of the regular examinations that are administered in the Spring to measure their growth in English. This test has four parts, speaking, listening, reading and writing. Think of all of the time that must be devoted to successfully completing this massive job. You must be thinking, the results of this test must really be used in a productive way. Not so much. When I first heard about this I thought great, a way to see how students have grown since their test last May, but as it turns out, we never see the scores. I had the wild idea of maybe taking a look at how the students fared, seeing what they were struggling in to perhaps inform my instruction—I was looked at like I had two heads! What a crazy idea to actually have an interest in how students do on a standardized test that takes about five hours per student to complete.

3. Welcome to America—where everyone is entitled to a free education! Welcome to MS 391—these are your teachers and your classmates; please take your time to adjust to your new surroundings. Six weeks later… are you getting used to your new life here? Yes, good, now leave!

From what I hear, classes are supposed to be capped at 33 in New York City. Although, there has been some confusion regarding bilingual classes. Last year, there was a class that kept growing, and nothing was done about it until there had been 50 students in the class for about a month. It seems that with bilingual classes, legally it doesn’t have to be divided until there are 50 students. Eventually the class was divided in two, but I find it strange that it took so long, and that it is legally acceptable to have a class that large.

At the beginning of the year, I was afraid that my class was headed in that same direction. At one point there were 41 kids on my roster. I started making a stink about it, and talked to the right people and we started getting some kids out by transferring the ones the most proficient in English into monolingual classes. I got rid of four that way, but was still left with 37 on my list.

Our mostly incompetent union representative took it upon herself to file a formal complaint—a grievance in union speak—to the district office for every class over 30 students. It seems that her actions were successful as I was instructed to either shuffle some kids from my class into a monolingual class, or to choose six to be transferred to another school because we don’t have another bilingual 7th grade. Although it sounds like a good thing to reduce class size, this issue really does go deeper. Think about who the last six students added to my class would be FOB kids who are just getting used to going to a new school, in a new city, in a new country. Think of what kind of emotional scarring this could have on a young child. Once they have started learning the ropes, boom, bye bye! Why didn’t anyone think of this when the kids were registering in the first place? I’ll get back to you with the developments on this front.