Gino Napoli , Math Teacher, Terra Nova High, Pacifica, California. 2671 El Camino del Mar #One San Francisco, Cal. 94121 Home: 415 - 831 - 4449 Work: 650 - 550 - 7600 ext 7621 A lot of criticism has been tossed at the issue of the 2 ½ week testing periods in the High Schools. The idea of testing is to insure that students are getting a good education. The assumption is of course that without testing, how would we know the students are doing well. The test scores therefore are supposed to help the funds be allocated to the best schools. The idea of creating monetary incentives is supposed to cause the high schools to become more competitive. I would like to offer the perspective from the teachers point of view, as an effective 4 year math teacher who has seen the reality behind these idealisms with his own eyes. Without discrediting the testing, the time duration and the position of the testing week is woefully ill-considered. The students are tested at the beginning of the 4th quarter, when there is still 7 weeks of teachable class time before summer. Thus the students are tested on material that is still to be introduced in the following 7 weeks. The 2 ½ weeks stitched so close to the end of the year is also a jarring experience that actually wastes 3 to 3 ½ weeks because the students have to get back in the groove. We keep thinking that adolescents are as readily adaptable as adults, and they are not. There are exceptions, but most of the students are burned out after the testing weeks. They have either just been humbled and stupefied, or they are psychologically uncertain of whether summer is coming soon enough. The testing should occur at the end of the year. The presumption that the students will not learn unless testing puts the teachers on notice is both insulting and short-sighted. If the students are not learning, the causes are not for a lack of safety checks. The causes have to do with the limited attraction of a low salary and an enormous work load. People in the private sector who work 80 to 100 hours a week get salaries of $500,000. Anyone who works that much for $40,000 is either very idealistic or very devoted, and these people can be trained to be better, or at least that is the theory. The reality is that a lot of people leave teaching because they can't afford to raise a family, they find themselves not predisposed to teaching, or they simply follow the money. Thus highly qualified teachers are not being attracted into the field. Principals are forced to hire anyone they can find, and the result is not the creme de la creme. How can we expect our kids to be effectively taught by mediocre teachers? In and of itself the Testing is a horrible method of measuring students education. The tests are created to put all students into one of four rigid categories called quartiles. There are guaranteed spots for upper, middle, and lower which is supposed to reflect the student's position against the rest of the student population. Thus, there are always losers, and a psychology of winning. In developing the tests, the creators measure the tests so that the results match the neat categories. Thus if a sample test turns up too many passing, the tests are altered and changed in order to guarantee a certain number of failures. These are not tests that gauge our students progress. The students are being tested on how well they can interpret complex questions in a short amount of time in a stressful situation, NOT on what they know and where they are in their development. Another presumption is that anyone who wants to be a teacher can be trained. This myth seems to believe that teachers should spend time being constantly trained and educated to improve in order to maintain their credential status. But the reality is that not everyone has the temperament to be a teacher. Existing with 140 to 200 adolescents in a day, consists of dealing with 140 to 200 different personalities and case studies of psychology that requires a tremendous amount of energy and patience a lot of people do not have, despite their idealistic desires. Many people enter the profession who leave after 3 or 5 years because they are drained and battered by the stress of dealing with 140-200 raw, unrefined, and emotional personalities day after day. If you look at the average school, the teacher turnover rate (the number of new teachers as a percentage of the staff) hovers between 30 and 40%, which means students will not be making the strong connections they need to learn and develop into whole beings. A lot of people seem to be puzzled at the current violence, but is it any wonder that kids react violently in an environment of stressed out teachers and a high rate of change in the teaching staff. No one sticks around long enough for the kids to look up to because of the financial strait-jacket imposed from above by our short-sighted politicians who talk in mind-speak jargon not tangible to the reality of the student's existence The testing assumes that these trainable teachers will be motivated by financial reward when the problems have nothing to do with a lack of motivation. The real problems of education is that politicians really don't know what the problems really need when there are really 2 simple solutions. Double teachers salaries and hire more staff so you can enact class-size reduction across the board. This way qualified people will be attracted, the work load can be reduced, and the students can be in a smaller personalized environment that remains constant over the 4 years that they attend high school.