About a month ago the History Department was notified that the State of California wanted high school Seniors to partake in the California Science Test.  Since English and History were the only classes that all Seniors have to take, and English was already giving tests next week to Juniors, I got to be a part of the joy and happiness that is the state testing program. 

Let’s be really clear, these scores are going to be terrible and the only thing anyone cares about is meeting the minimum number of Seniors necessary to take the test to get the state off our backs.  An unannounced test to Seniors near the last quarter of their high school career about a subject that most of them haven’t taken for two years; I’m sure everything will work out great. 

I haven’t administered a test in about a decade since the only test I prep for is Advanced Placement and I’m not allowed to administer the test because AP teachers can’t a do the tests for obvious reasons.  This experience was not fun.   A couple of observations:

-There was no incentive for the students to do anything but not take the test.  When students asked why they should take it I told them that if they don’t do well it could Impact funding which could impact elective programs which could impact Student inspiration which could impact a student earning a good wage which could impact payment into Social Security which could impact their Social Security.  It wasn’t a lie.

-I didn’t tell them that they could legally exempt from the test.  This has consequences because if 95% of Seniors don’t take the Science Test, the school gets punished by the state.  Yes, even with exceptions.

-A vast majority of my students took the test. 

-The test was on Chromebooks and the number of questions and how tough they were varied.  Some students had to answer around 50 questions while others answered 65. 

-I would have bombed the test, both in high school and now. 

-I was able to monitor student progress on my computer.  I also walked around and about 3-4 students in every class were done in 15 minutes and would answer questions with “Go fuck yourself.”   This included Advanced Placement students.  None of these students had ever written anything like “Go fuck yourself” on work handed in to me.

-Most students tried and most students were frustrated.  The classes were two hour blocks and the test lasted almost the entire two hours for most of the students.  Most made a genuine effort and some looked exhausted. 

And it was depressing waste of time.  There was zero benefit in taking the test and it wasted two days of valuable face-to-face time.  The rest of this week was block scheduling for make-ups while next week is testing for Math (with my colleagues in the History department) and English.  This means two hour block scheduling for continues and I ask you to think about your favorite classes and not so favorite classes in high school.

That’s what I thought.