Be a hero — help a kid pass the test…
Montclair High School is looking for tutors to help students prepare for the English, Reading and Comprehension sections of the High School Proficiency Assessment given this March. Each tutor will be matched with a particular student. The tutoring will begin the first week of January and continue at least through the end of March. The tutors will meet with students for 45 minute sessions, two times per week during regular school hours, 8 am – 2:30 pm.
No expertise is required. Training sessions are planned for January 4 and 5, 3-5 pm. Room 603 MHS Annex. Contact: Amy Poster (212) 538-8394, amy.poster@credit-suisse.com
If there are tutors to pass this ridiculous test, why can’t they have tutors to help the kids so they could pass their actual classes properly, thereby making the tests unnecessary? montclair is A.F.U.!
8am-2:30pm
RIGHT!!
whatever happened to tutoring in the evening or weekend?
No expertise is required??? Eeesh!
Stunned – you are dead on. I love that students are being tutored TO PASS A STATE STANDARDIZED TEST. Not because they are in need of help to maintain good, or at least passing, grades or even because they want simply to master a subject or achieve a higher standard for beyond high school. This is not about learning. This is purely about the board of ed getting the highest possible state scores on a state standardized test so that they can trumpet the results or at least make the lowest scores come up a little. Pathetic.
“whatever happened to tutoring in the evening or weekend?”
There is a math tutoring program for middle school students that is run on Saturday mornings. Why don’t you check that out?
I don’t have all of the details, but there was an announcement about it at the November Montclair Society of Engineers meeting (which I missed}.
“I love that students are being tutored TO PASS A STATE STANDARDIZED TEST.”
The purpose of the test is to measure how well students have mastered certain skills such as English, Reading and Comprehension that are essential for learning other subjects. The purpose of the tutoring is to make sure that ALL Montclair High School students have mastered these skills.
Although the immediate goal may be to raise test scores, the ultimate result will be to give these kids the ability to learn other subjects and as a result to get higher grades.
Passing the state lame tests looks good therefore it is good. Who cares whether they truly know anything. Besides pulling kids out to tutor them saves 2 periods of teaching time which allows the BOE to spend the money on other important things like PR or moving playing fields.
Regardless of how you feel about the tests (and I’m agin’em) once you’re tutoring the kids you can, er, teach them.
Bitpusher expresses the common perception of these tests…but as an educator, former test writer, former test-prep preparor, I can tell you that that’s FAR from the truth. The tests measure how well students take tests, not content.
This is one of the biggest scams going–and a reason that I gave all that crap up. The push for measurement is doing kids a disservice by focusing on test prep instead of learning “real stuff” and is raking taxpayers over the coals with the additional costs needed to administer these tests. It’s a good racket, sadly.
All the Montclair schools in every grade (except K,1,and 2)teach to the test; very big push at the elementary and middle school levels. Starts from DOI and the Super, goes to the principals, bears down on the teachers. Students only learn how to take a test.