Reply #134: I met a teacher from Mississippi [View All]

at an NCTM conference this fall who teaches her kids to make 'cheat sheets'. She has to cover up charts like we do, so she shows her kids how to make their own. Their tests are not timed, so the first thing she teaches her kids to do is to get out that scratch paper and make those 'study guides' they will need for the test. No way could we do that where I work.

In my state they are so strict about this that the state actually sends monitors around during testing to make sure no one has left charts up. I teach special ed and the first accomodation I mark on every IEP is for charts and visual aids during testing. So I can leave stuff up in my room. The state monitors come in every year and sometimes start to berate me until they realize it is a special ed room. I always have IEPs handy to show them when they come.

Another district in my area got in big trouble a few years ago when they sent the test home for homework! They got caught because teachers in other districts whose own kids were enrolled in that district realized their child's homework was the state assessment and they told on the offending district (which incidentally had been recognized the year before for having some of the highest scores in the state). Since our state requires all testing materials to be kept locked up and only released to teachers for a few hours each day during the testing window, it was a big scandal when this high achieving district sent the test home to be completed. This story still makes me giggle. How stupid :)