Beyond Happy

I would like to apologize in advance for this long post :)

Yesterday was the long awaited day of getting TAKS scores back.

We had a total of 19 re-testers and 19 first-timers take the test in April. 

Since I was hired to be the Algebra 1 and TAKS tutorials teacher, I worked with most of these kids. (Now that is not to say that they worked with me.) I worked hard with these kids for the last 3 months getting ready for their tests. It was a very frustrating process for both me and the kids. They were tired of doing the work and didn't like being pushed and I was tired of them constantly complaining and having resistance to doing any work.

In March, I got to test the effectiveness of my curriculum I had put together for preparing for the TAKS.

Out of the 36 who took the math test, 26 had sat in my class at some point in the month before the test. Of these 26, 10 of them passed! I was so happy for them, but sad for the ones who didn't pass. This was the 3rd or 4th time taking it for most of these kids. Anyways, that was a 38% pass rate for me and a 28% pass in general. Considering when I was hired they told me the pass rate was 13% I'm thinking that was a good improvement in just 2 short months.

As the next 5 weeks went by and we awaited the results from the March testing, I started over in my TAKS review focusing mostly on the first time testers as well as continuing with the re-testers that had just tested. Well this was extremely difficult for the re-testers to find any motivation and some of the first timers thought they were "too smart" to do any of my review work. At one point I was about ready to just stop wasting my time in all the prep and quit doing the review but I had about 5 students who really worked hard and they encouraged me to keep doing my review. 

When the scores came out at the end of March, we were about 3 weeks away from testing again. Some of my students were not so happy, but to see the look on my students faces when I told them they passed was priceless! One boy thought I was joking with him and when I showed him his score, he jumped up and down and went running all over the school. This made me happy.

It came down to the day before the test in April and I told my students to ask me anything they still needed help with. Most of my students were silent. They just wanted to be quiet and have a free day-these are the students who didn't do so well. Other students asked me everything they had trouble with until the end of the period- these are the students who passed! Finally, there were the few students who had done no work all semester and told me to tell them everything they needed to know-these students really bothered me. 

Then yesterday, we finally got the scores back from this test! My students were growing impatient. A lot of them were depending on passing scores to be able to graduate in May. Like I said earlier, we had 19 re-testers and 19 first timers. Of the re-testers, only 3 of them passed. This was discouraging. But I was happy because the three that passed really studied hard. I had one of the ones who didn't pass come up to me and tell me that it was my fault that he didn't pass. I just told him okay and didn't argue about it. He was one of the kids who slept, talked, or was on the phone the entire time during my class. He only wanted to learn when it was convenient to him. I know that I tried and it without the student putting forth any effort only so much blame can be placed on you.

Anyways, 8 of the 19 first timers passed! That was a 42% pass rate which was even higher than March! I am so proud of my students who worked real hard and passed the test! It has been a joy these last two days getting to see their excitement as they finish their courses and get ready for life after graduation.

I will close with a quote from one of my passers! She said, "Thank you Ms. Meadows! I know I wouldn't have passed if I had stayed [at the other high school]! Now I get to graduate early and be successful in life" This right here is the reason that I became a teacher. I think graduation is going to bring many tears.