The SOLs do predate NCLB by some time. My family moved to Virginia in 1998 and we heard about them fairly soon after.
ok, then 4 times a year. still not the average load. I, too am sympathetic to the concept of the tests. and the issues. OP didn’t do much for the argument, IMHO.
Sorry… was distracted by work… 
It’s not that my kid is particularly bad at math or any other subject at this level. She certainly enjoys writing more than math but that can change next year.
It’s the VOLUME of work being sent home this past week. I mean she’s used to some homework every day. Usually no more than an hour. But this amount of work is just overwhelming her.
Plus, having spent the year doing homework with her, I can plainly see that some of the problems being asked in these SOL practice sheets are not something they’ve covered in the past. A lot of it quite advanced from what I’ve seen her bring home through the year.
So perhaps I should talk to the teacher about why there is such a sudden rise in homework and new material when this should only be review in prep for the SOL.
P.S. I didn’t mean maths as a plural. I meant to write math.
Not sure what you’re expecting exactly.
Perhaps you can explain to me how the SOL’s and the pressure associated with them benefit my kids.
hey - how many fucking times should I have to post that “had you simply complained about the standardized tests themselves, I’d be right w/you”? The wrong person in that household is taking the tests apparently.
Ouch. 
Hey wring - Fuck you very much. M’kay?
I can be irritated with the SOL’s on a philosophical and practical level.
What about that isn’t clear for you in the OP?
Sounds like the teacher needs some education. Sounds like this teacher wants the parents to do their job. Why don’t you complain to the Principal? You, as an adult having been through it yourself, are in a good position to determine what is reasonable, and what is not.
Well algebra, geometry, calculus … quite a few actually.
Do you 'Mericans say Mathematics or Mathematic when using the long form of the word?
more than 2 hours homework is unreasonable, but it may be necessary if the child really does have problems. That said if the SOL is too difficult for some then they should fail rather than pass through artificially high ammounts of parrot training.
My My aren’t we a bit testy today?
What’s the problem? Figuring out the problem so you can conyey the method to youir darling daughter? Failing to see she knew the methods last semester, or what. No doubt but what is the schools/teacher’s/system’s fault. Just tooo much to do and sooo little time. :rolleyes:
Virgina gives shit out of luck tests? :eek:
Who knew?
SOLs, pfeh…I’ve got APs. (Just kidding, I know SOLs are a pain: I’m taking part 3 of the grade 11 English SOL soon; I wish they’d just had us do them all at once)
Have you been drinking? :dubious:
Nah, he’s just naturally an asshole.
Yes, I know standardized tests existed before NCLB. I’m a New Yorker, we had Regent’s. But with NCLB, the tests are emphasized, and teachers tend to have to teach to the tests more.
So that’s why I’m blaming it on that. Not that they didn’t exist, just that there’s more emphasis.
I also live in Virginia. I have kids in 5th, 2nd, and 1st grade. Interestingly enough, when SOLs came around my kid told me “SOLs are in a couple of weeks” and I said “ok,” They did some studying in class and he had about 1/2 hour extra study work each day. Then he took them and did fine.
From everything I can tell, as long as your kid keeps up in school and has any ability to adapt what she’s learned to a standardized test form, I don’t see what the problem is.
Four hours a night seems excessive for things she should have already learned in school.
Therein lies my surprise. They’ve kept up. They’ve done the work and are doing well (with the exception of a couple of rough spots earlier in the year for my daughter). My guess is that her teacher is overwhelming the kids with these practice exams. This is only the second time they’ve had to write SOL’s because they were in private school before this. I don’t remember it being this much work last year.
Sounds like this is not the norm and I’m reacting to just an exhausted and slightly overwhelmed kid who’s just had a rough few day from all this SOL huplah. Also, we’ve had a couple of issues with this teacher. We’ll see how much work comes home today.
Plus I’ve been out of sorts myself the past couple of weeks with things unrelated. It’s entirely possible that I may need to go and find my happy place and calm the fuck down. :smack:
I used to assistant-edit the standardized tests (IOWA) for a living. It’s less about education and more about numbers and funding as far as I’m concerned. I worked closely with the editors who were all in teaching prior to that, and most of them were down on NCLB and that sort of thing. We created pre-tests for children as young as Kindergarten, including instructions on how to test better. These testing tips had nothing to do with studying or actually learning the material. It was a blueprint of how to skip over areas you’re not good at and go to the stuff you’re proficient at, go back later, blah, blah, blah.
The whole thing is so high-pressure for the children. I think the people who are dissing Quicksilver regarding his concern are out of line. It is presented as a Very Big Deal to the kids, and depending on the teacher, it could scare the hell out of someone who is struggling with a particular discipline.
That is one of the single most adult things I’ve ever seen posted on this board! Kudos to you, QuickSilver! You are 
We’re also in Virginia and the SOLs are a big deal at the kids’ school right now. They did send home extra review stuff recently for both kids (3rd and 6th grade). There’s also been some amount of SOL review all along during the year. On the order of a page at a time, and not unreasonable.
Yes, it’s stuff the kids should know how to do. Adding tons of homework to pound it into the kids right now is just moronic - they should have learned it all along this year and if they haven’t, then the schools deserve to have the kids fail the SOLs. It is NOT any sort of requirement for advancement to the next grade.
I refuse to dwell on it with the kids right now. The extra prepwork the schools have sent home doesn’t benefit the kids at all - either they’ve learned it or they haven’t. The prepwork benefits the school’s overall scores, it doesn’t benefit my kids at all. Until it directly affects their ability to graduate (and that doesn’t happen until 9th grade, IIRC) I fucking REFUSE to stress about it, or bug the kids with it at home.
Quicksilver, I’d encourage you to have your kid spend a reasonable amount of time on it each day as part of her regular homework burden. Maybe a half hour at most. If she can’t do it, tell the school to fuck themselves (um, probably should phrase that a bit more politely )
I had to laugh last year. We got a letter from the school district saying “yay, we found funding to send kids to summer school to practice their SOL work so they can retake the test during the summer and isn’t that just PEACHY-KEEN”. Um, no thanks. No way in HELL am I sending my kid to summer school to help the school punch its ticket.