Reply #6: I don't think the teacher is acquiescing to anything. [View All]

She has to retest the students because they don't perform well enough on a standard test that somebody decided was the line to use for passing.

If you were to look at classes in some parts of America where there are low socioeconomic conditions with another ethnic group as a majority, you would probably get the same results.

She isn't allowed to work any underlying problems that might cause a poorer performance. I would be willing to bet that a low reading level is a lot of it. It's not that they can't read on a higher level. They may need a little more instruction in that area. If they read better they will perform better, and I believe that is true no matter who you are.

When I taught, I was teaching 7th and 8th graders. I looked up reading levels and not IQs. That told me more about how to approach a class. I did it for all classes. I had a lot of students that read on a 2nd and 3rd grade level. I threw out the basic approach to lessons I was supposed to use. I redesigned them to try to teach reading as well as subject matter. I wasn't assuming they couldn't learn. I thought they needed a different approach to succeed, and not just in my classes.

I know they weren't stupid. I had students who would listen to me and try to do the written work. Their written work would be incomprehensible at times. An example is a student who spelled "cactus" as "ceodar." I remember that 30 years later. I talked to this student later, and we went over the material. He explained it quite well. He was able to absorb the lesson by listening, and that impressed me.

All kids deserve more than judgement by constant testing. We have gotten away from what school and teaching should really be about.