You want to hear an example of how ridiculous NCLB's high stakes testing has gotten?

[LostInAnomie]

Last week, the fourth graders at our elementary school were given the ISTEP test (Indiana's standardized test to access student progress). Given the importance of this test the teachers were being pushed to ensure student attendance by any means necessary. On Tuesday, while the students were taking their test I noticed one boy repeatedly scratching his head, and upon closer inspection I saw what appeared to be lice crawling in his hair. Since he was done with his test for the day, I quickly escorted him to the nurses office and asked her to do a lice check. The school nurse then informed me that until testing was over on Friday head checks had been suspended.

For the next two and a half days (even though I asked his parents to take him to a doctor to have his head checked), the student was allowed to sit in the classroom with other students. On Friday, despite my attempts to minimize his contact with the other students, when I sent the class down to have their heads checked, eight students were sent home with lice. Then today, another thirty kids from the other classes were sent home.

Because of the pressure to perform during high stakes testing, our school put the student body, the staff, and the parents of these children at risk of contracting lice.

[rodeodance]

1. i would have called the newspaper----get some press on it.

[Missy Vixen]

2. I wonder if the Indiana department of public health would be interested

in hearing about this one.

Julie

[cgrindley]

3. Once one kid has lice, they all have it

it would have been pointless to stop the testing. On edit, I'll add that Standardized Testing is more important than lice.

[sandnsea]

4. That is completely untrue

Why would you say something so ridiculous.

[pnwmom]

5. You must be kidding. Standardized testing is more important?

Standardized testing can be put off if necessary. Or a kid can drop out of testing if he needs to.

And it's not true that if one kid has lice, they all have it -- that's only true if you neglect the situation, as this school obviously did.

My own children never got lice and neither did their friends -- even though they were in classes several times where a case of lice had been discovered.

[Bjornsdotter]

6. Not true

...not sure where you got that idea but it's wrong.

Cheers

[gollygee]

7. That is ridiculous

once one kid has lice, they all have it? What kind of logic is that?

[LostInAnomie]

8. That couldn't be any further from the truth.

Although, it is very easy to get lice, I can tell you from classroom experience that if an outbreak is caught early enough it is possible to keep it from spreading to the rest of the class. Sending that kid home could have prevented 37 other kids and their parents from getting lice and possibly spreading it even further.

It most definitely was not worth putting the rest of the school at risk.

[TahitiNut]

12. Mal function. Mal function. Post from bizarro world. Mal function. Mal function.

[Richard Steele]

14. What an utterly typical post for you.

[LiberalFighter]

9. Should had arranged for student contact with principal

[DawgHouse]

10. Poor little boy.

I don't really understand why the nurse couldn't go ahead and check the boy for lice, though. Is it because the rule was that "once discovered" he wouldn't be allowed back in class until treated?

[LostInAnomie]

11. Yes

Once a student is confirmed to have lice they have to leave the school immediately, and are not allowed to come back until they have a doctor's slip showing that they no longer have lice.

Once one kid is found to be infected we have to send the other students in the class to be checked. The principle was more concerned about a few kids missing the test than the whole student body and staff being put at risk.

[TahitiNut]

13. It just shows that nit-picking evolves and is contageous.

:dunce:

[LWolf]

15. That is ludicrous. But not surprising.

That's what you get when you threaten people. Determination to comply, to get that AYP, at all cost. The AYP is the most important item on the agenda.

If you haven't made AYP because not enough kids are taking the test, if you are under threat of takeover and disbanding if you don't make AYP again, districts are going to "order" site admins to crack down and ensure that everyone takes the test. If the site admin crosses a line in the effort to do just that, the district will then censure the admin.

How many of you have called to tell your reps that the current draft under discussion for renewal isn't acceptable, because it still contains high-stakes testing?

[rainbow4321]

16. County health department....

Call 'em. Down here they take head inspections seriously. One mom called them and reported that the school nurse was not doing the inspections properly and was missing some head lice cases. The county health department got involved and I believe the county worker even went to the school herself to check the situation out.