Bad teachers or the system

[ASUADPi]

I definately agree that it is stupid to hold all children up to the same standards.

That is why there are lawsuits! NCLB is trumping IDEA, which has been around longer!

In Arizona students take the AIMS test. The kids scores determine if we make AYP or not. We can't teach to the test because 1) they change it every year and 2) they make it harder every year.

In Tuesday's AZ Republic they had a sample of 15 questions from a 5th grade AIMS. Here I am, 28, Master Degree. I got 11 questions right and I was only exceeding. The questions were ridiculously hard! My first thoughs were "OMG if I barely exceeded on this "test" and I'm more educated than the kids, they are going to FAIL!!!"

Here's the stupid part of AIMS. Because of NCLB all sped students (SLD, MIMR labels, which most sped kids are SLD and MIMR) HAVE TO take AIMS on GRADE LEVEL. You are therefore asking a child who can only read at 1st grade to take a 3rd grade AIMS were in reality the reading level on the 3rd grade AIMS is 4.0-4.5. WTF?!?

Even worse is that if high school seniors DO NOT PASS AIMS they DO NOT GET TO GRADUATE!!!! There are tons of lawsuits right not against the Department of Education because of this rule. Especially from the parents of Sped students.

Some kids don't Standardize test well, whether they are sped or not, and it is completely unfair to say to a child "yes, you have a 4.0 but because you didn't pass AIMS you can't graduate". That is complete and utter BS!

I'm glad that parents are suing, hell as a teacher (with no children yet) I'd love to sue our state for their utter stupidity. Hell, I'd love to sue or stupid President and congress for their utter stupidity in NCLB!