Ups and Downs

The good news: My students improved 20 points in Language Arts on the state test.

The bad news: They went down considerably in math. Yikes.

Well, considering that the math program was pretty terrible, the material was incomplete in Spanish, and it wasn't my focus (nor my strength,) I guess the results were pretty predictable. If they had gone down in Language Arts I would have been really bummed because we worked so hard.

I only had one student in "far below basic" (don't you just love that designation,) and he was my particularly challenging student. The students I had in my intervention group all improved. One little girl stayed about the same, but her parents were going through a particularly nasty divorce at the time and she was so obviously emotionally wrecked when we took the tests.

Overall, our school score decreased, so that was really a huge bummer. As a dual language school it makes it hard to fight off the naysayers when we lose ground. It was almost entirely in math, which is both disheartening and encouraging. Disheartening because that's where we've always been high, but encouraging because its also where we've lacked focus. We focus on language, dual language. The fact that the now fifth graders gained so much in language arts is significant. I should hope those results continue so that we can show that our model works.

It will most definitely mean that we will focus on math, and that is actually a very encouraging thing. I am weak in teaching mathematics. It often takes the back burner. Its not okay. Each year I tell myself I will put more energy into my teaching of mathematics, but each year I am so overwhelmed and told to focus on language. So, in fact, this is a blessing in disguise.

Up, up, up we go!