I just received our state test scores today.  My class did fantastic.  I would like to take credit for it but I really can't.  I don't know how it happened.  I had 43 students for most of the year.  I was barely able to maintain.  I know I tried to keep the class on task.  I know I tried to teach the information in the text that was required.  But, I truly did not feel I did a great job this year.  On top of all that, almost all the kids at our school were new to the district.  Only a few had been there since kinder and another group came the year before.  Three fourths of my class had just moved into the area before school started and after school started.

We had no sense of community in our school this year.  That should change since we will have students back next year.  It was a difficult year for us all.  However, even though I felt my class was behind where we should have been, apparantly we did just fine.  I know I am going to have to work on Writing skills.  That is where my class did the lowest and we still met the state standard.  It is also my least favorite thing to teach.

If the scores made an impact on me (I was over the moon!)  I guess we can see why parents want test scores.  They want to know if their child is progressing and how they are doing and compare them to others  too.  I did when my kids were little.  I actually hate testing.  How do you compare our state test to other states who use their own tests.  I feel we should have a national standard for testing.  If parents are going to use the scores to see how their kids are doing, let's compare them to others in the USA with a standard test that tests the same thing across the board.