Reaction to newspaper article

Reaction to article: Teacher suspended for refusing to give state test

It is too bad that Mr. Chew didn’t go into details about the many reasons of why he refused to give the test. I was disappointed when I read the only reason listed was that the students struggle through the test and that he see’s few positive results.
I would have said that the only positive result that I see with my immersion students is that they are becoming really good bubble fillers! This past week my students have been testing for English Language Proficiency (ELP). In another week they’re going to be taking AIMSWEB testing. This test is going to test to see if they know the English language alphabet and phonetics also basic math skills-number recognition and the student’s ability to count to whatever in English. Here I am teaching the Yupik language and culture and my students need to take these tests in English! I happened to be passing one child who was being tested for ELP. The tester was asking an immersion student in English, “Tell me what this picture means?” – it was a picture of a traffic light turning red, it was a picture of a child waiting to cross at a crosswalk! How is an immersion child who has never been to the city be able to tell the tester what they see!
Seriously! This is what our students have to be subjected to with these state and federally mandated testing!