Testing Season

We have entered every teachers favorite time of year: standardized testing season.

I apologize for the recent radio silence on the blog but unfortunately there has been very little to report.  While No Child Left Behind certainly increased the weight given to standardized testing for all schools, as a charter school in New York City the state tests carry even greater importance.  Our continued existence is largely based upon the scores our students earn on these tests.

Due to the importance of these tests a lot of time in the weeks leading up to testing is spent preparing our students to perform at the highest possible level.  As an unfortunate result content not related to ELA (English Language Arts) or Math is relegated to the back burner.

I have barely seen my fourth grade students these past few weeks.  They are only able to attend music sporadically, and when they do attend large numbers of students are pulled out to receive additional tutoring.  Because of this we have made very little progress on the GarageBand project.  Most students are still working on their AABA arrangements.  A few students have moved beyond and are beginning to write lyrics (and in some cases melodies) to eventually be recorded into the tracks.

The actual state test does not occur until the end of April so I am anticipating several more weeks of irregular class periods.  I will likely need to reevaluate my expectations for final projects as we are not going to be able to cover nearly as much material as I had first hoped.