Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Clarity Manifesto of Honors Testing

You should have seen a paper go home in recent days about honors testing for the middle school. I'm going to do my best to break this down for you. Not trying to insult your intelligence, but just trying to clarify a few things based on my experience over the past several years with sending kids on to middle school after the fifth grade and hearing back from parents and students in the following years.

So here is a little piece I'm going to call: Mr. Carter's Middle School Honors Testing Manifesto. I'm just trying to explain things as I know them.

Honors Testing
The thing about honors is that it is a great challenge for those kids who need more than what they're getting in the mainline classroom. Some of your children are fantastic writers and readers who read well above their grade level. Some of them are bored to tears by their Math class right now, and in fact, some of them are even bored by Math and they're in Challenge Math. For these kids, I would recommend the honors testing. This does not mean they will get into honors, and it does not mean that they should be in honors, but if your child blasts the test out of the water, then it is something to consider. It may help them to excel to their potential.

I'm going to take just a minute to dispel a common myth about reading levels. When you look at a child's reading level and it says, for instance, "7.4", that does not mean your child reads at a seventh grade level. It means that your child earned the same score on a grade-level text that a seventh grader would have received on that same test, which is meant for a fifth grader. Your child does really well for a fifth grader, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're reading at a seventh grade level. This is a common misconception. Good for bragging rights; bad for deciding whether or not your child is ready for honors classes.

As for Honors Math, this would mean that your child would be missing yet another year's worth of Math classes. There are some kids who just naturally understand a lot about how Math works; they can probably do difficult problems without really being able to explain why they know how they can do them. These are the people for whom I would recommend the testing for Honors Math. These are usually kids who have already been identified in Challenge Math in grade school. These kids have already skipped one grade level. Honors class would mean they would miss another. I normally say that Honors Math is for kids who crave math.

As for the Humanities portion (language arts and social studies), this would mean quite a bit more independent work, and a heck of a lot more school work. Kids who are in Honors for Humanities have more to do, but they are the types of kids who excel at that kind of work. They need to be very well-founded in their writing ability, and they need to be accomplished readers.

With Honors Math, there will be quite a bit that the teacher will expect the kids to already know. If they go into that class as a sixth grader, they are expected to know all of the sixth and seventh grade material already.

Advanced Math
Many kids will be recommended or even assigned for seventh grade math next year based on this year's grades. I implore you to talk to me before going ahead with this. I've had students in my mainline math class from last year who were placed in advanced math for this year, and when their parents called me, I sometimes felt that they may be ready for it, but often I thought that they needed to have been in the mainline math class.

If you decide against putting Little Johnny in advanced math, and he gets to the middle school and the teacher calls you up and says that they believe Little Johnny would benefit from moving on to the advanced math class, then by all means, if you think they're ready, go for it.

Not testing for Honors does not mean they will be out of the running for Advanced Math. But doing well in Honors testing can indicate that your child would at least be ready for Advanced Math. I hope that makes sense. I've rewritten it a few times already trying to clarify, but to no avail.

Not putting your child into Advanced Math or Honors English or Math does not keep them from getting into any classes in high school. This is another common myth amongst parents of fifth graders.

We need to know by Friday, November 18, 2011, whether your child is going to be doing the testing. You can register through the school system's website at http://www.ccs.k12.in.us. The testing itself will take place on Saturday, January 21, 2012. They start at 7:45am and will go until 12pm at Creekside Middle School. The school system is adamant that if you wish to be considered for the honors program, you must attend this testing, and no exceptions will be made. Results will be returned in mid to late February.

I realize that this is a difficult decision to make, so please let me know if you want to sit down and talk about it with me, we can e-mail back and forth, or even just a phone call. But please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about your child and Honors or Advanced classes.

If any past parents have anything else to add to this, please let me know! And if anything I've said is found to be incorrect, please, someone, let me know so I can fix it.

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