Teacher Refuses to Give Test

Teacher Refuses to Give Test

I applaud this teacher for standing up for his beliefs. Last year I watched a student with a reading disability and who is LEP status pore over the Reading and Writing portion of his HSGQE. The poor kid not only spent the entire day reading and rereading and trying to finish this test, but he even stayed after school and worked on it. By the end of the second day the student was exhausted, so exhausted in fact that he couldn’t even finish his writing test. He was simply burned out. Imagine his frustration when he received his scores and to find out that he had not passed after all that work.

I also have another student who has learning disabilities and is currently at a fourth grade level in math, reading and writing. He also spent the entire day and part of his afternoon trying to finish his tests. As with the other student he did not pass the test.

I often reflect on the absurdity of the state tests, especially the HSGQE. However, I don’t know if I would have the guts to refuse to give the test. I think that Chew did prove a point but that he got off quite lightly. I’m not sure if that would happen in other school districts. There may be many reasons why he didn’t get more severely punished, perhaps it was the way he conducted his insubordination or perhaps it was his numerous years in the school district.

Whatever it was that kept Chew from getting more severely punished there would be no guarantee that other teachers would get off as lightly.

As much as we don’t like the idea of high stakes testing and as much as we are against it, it is going to take much more than one or two insubordinate teachers to change things.

I think the best thing we can hope for is that the next administration will make positive changes in the field of education.