We are right in the middle of ISAT testing and any encouragement you can give your son/daughter through this process would be appreciated.  The ISAT tests are used by the State of Illinois to determine each school’s AYP (Annual Yearly Progress).  While I wholeheartedly support the use of data to demonstrate growth, or lack thereof, I am not a fan of one test carrying so much weight.  Does this “snapshot” of the two weeks in March, of the questions presented on the tests provide an accurate assessment of the skills, knowledge and abilities of our students?  It may be one piece of the puzzle, but does not provide the whole story.

I love to share stories of my family, and to illustrate the use of only one piece of data I want to share yet another story of my daughter.  Those of you familiar with this column may remember the story I shared about her “misplacing” her I-phone.  This next story took place a number of years ago when my daughter was in eighth grade (she is now a freshman in college).  At the conclusion of the first quarter she brought home her report card with a failing grade in algebra.  When asked about the grade, my daughter responded quite predictably “the teacher doesn’t like me, and it doesn’t make any difference what I do, I will still fail”.  Now for this illustration that comment will represent one piece of data.  If I looked only at that one piece of data and accepted it verbatim, the teacher would be to blame, my daughter would have continued to fail and basically a year’s worth of math instruction would have been lost.  However, as a father I love my daughter and trust that she would never lie to me, I accept her statement for what it is, a skewed perception based, even if a small part, in fact as one piece of the puzzle.  Then I collected further data, I contacted the teacher, I requested a copy of her grade report for the first quarter and found there was as, Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story”.  What in fact was the truth was my young impressionable daughter in fact did not like the teacher and decided to teach him a lesson by not completing any homework.  Now, in a content area such as algebra it is virtually impossible to succeed without studying and completing your homework.  Once this fact was established, my daughter being the problem solver that she was, presented the solution of placing her back to pre-algebra, for she could have simply walked in the door and earned A’s with minimal if any effort.  Here is where I had to not be a friend/enabler, and be a dad.  I developed a priority task list for each day, algebra homework BEFORE anything else, completed and checked by dad.  Amazing with this basic intervention, her grade rose to a C in a matter of weeks.  However, due to her non-diligence in the first quarter she was still far behind, so I hired a private tutor for one hour a week for the remainder of the year.  The tutor was amazing and the end of the year she finished with an A-.  It should be noted that the tutor was more directed toward her “can do spirit” than re-teaching the material.

Moral of this story, please take what you children tell you for what it is, a biased point of view with a specific motive in mind.  It is not a lie, and sometimes the lesson that a child learn due to a poor choice, or poor behavior, may serve as a much greater teacher than a parent who feels they need to cover and protect their child by shielding them from the consequences of their actions.          

Have a great weekend. 

Dr. Early