Doing the best you can

(An Eastern Kingbird all fluffed out in the cold.)

This coming week, kids all over America will be subjected to standardized tests to determine what they know (or how well teachers have taught to the test). We use the CRCT in Georgia. The problem is that the CRCT is very gray in its content and requires a good bit of inference. Not good when your child is more of the black and white persuasion. Just attending to three hours of testing a day is struggle enough, but imagine if you felt deflated from the get go because you didn't understand how the questions were worded. Can you turn to the teacher for help? Nope, because then it's not standardized. For a disabled perfectionist, it must be overwhelmingly frustrating. For my disabled perfectionist, it causes way too much undo stress. Oh, and did we mention that if kids in your school don't do well, we'll add you to our "didn't make AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) list" because you know we are all about the current administration's NCLB (No Child Left Behind) policy. So, consequently, teacher's and school administrator's jobs are dependent on how well their students do on this one test. It's insane.

We have all sorts of modifications in place written into his IEP. Sam gets one on one monitoring, he's able to take frequent breaks, the instructions can be repeated to him, and he's able to answer in the booklet instead of having to bubble in an answer sheet. But still, he usually fails miserably. Doesn't matter that he makes all A's and B's with his daily school work, only how he performs on this one test. If you opt out of your Special Ed child taking this test, they can't get a regular ed diploma and truly are supposed to be so impaired that they require instruction in a self-contained classroom. Well, that's not us either. It's so very frustrating that there is no alternative assessment for kids like mine. I hate that his score will pull down the school's overall rating, but what can we do?

I asked them if he does not do well if he won't be allowed on to the ninth grade, and they all just smiled and said, "We as the IEP team determine his placement." In other words, they really don't care how he does. They'd love to see him meet the standard, but he'll go on to high school regardless. So basically, I've told him, as he's started stressing about Monday to just read each question carefully and choose what he thinks is the best answer. It's all I can ask of him. Sometimes you just do the best you can.