Mrs. Noland, a popular special education teacher, credits her student's high success rate on the state assessment to consistent parent involvement. Mrs. Cherry, a 3rd grade teacher, is confused because inspite of an 80% parent participation rate, her student success rate pales in comparison to that of Mrs. Noland's students.
What suggestions can you give Mrs. Cherry?
The first thing that Mrs. Cherry needs to do is some self-reflection. She
needs to think about what she is doing in her daily practices compared to what
Mrs. Noland is doing. Is there anything that she could possibly change to make
improvement? Another factor that needs to be evaluated is what Mrs.Noland's
parental involvement actually consist of and how that measures up to what she
has been doing. There are many factors that play a role in students success and
performance on high stakes testing. I feel as though parental involvement
definetly plays a role in that, but is by no means the deciding factor. You
would have to take in to consideration the amount of sleep that the student has
been getting on a regular basis and the night before the test. Does the student
regualarly receive adequate nutrition? Did they get to eat or drink anything
before showing up to your class to take this test or are they going in with no
fuel and a growling tummy? Of course the delivery of the instruction through out
the year is huge, but another important factor that plays in to all of that is
the relationships that you have built with your students and their parents. Is
that rapport there to where your students trust and believe in what you are
teaching them? Majority of the time once those bonds are formed with your
students they will do whatever they can to learn and please you because they
know that you sincerely care about them. For some students, the time that they
spend in your class each day may be the only time in their entire day that they
feel that safe and welcoming feeling. Good rapport with the parents from the
beginning of the year can pretty much guarantee you that you will have their
support shall a behavioral or academic situation arise down the road. Another
thing that Mrs. Cherry needs to remember is to make sure that she is comparing
apples to apples. I hate to say this, but it is the truth. Depending upon the
particular needs of the SPED student they get various accomodations throughout
the year on their work as well as on test day. Some of them receive oral
administration, can use a calculator, and/or have 3 answer choices as opposed to
4. Once Mrs. Cherry has thought all of this over and jotted down some notes
regarding some things that she might consider changing, I would recommend that
she schedule a time with Mrs. Noland in which they can sit down and talk about
everything that has been discussed above. Sometimes as teachers we may tend to
get tunnel vision and need some outside perspective to broaden the scope for us
and help us see things that we may be overlooking. I would also like for Mrs.
Cherry to keep in mind that no two kids are exactly the same, so it's hard to
compare her class to that of Mrs. Noland's due to the diversity in each of the
classrooms.
