school policy prohibiting test retakes

Well, if you’re not a teacher, you may not realize quite what you’re asking.
If the test is short and memorizable, such as fill in the blanks or multiple choice, you can’t give the same test in a short period of time because the marks will represent cheating rather than actual learning. So the teacher has to make up a second version of the test, and this can take several hours both preparing and typing. Making up multiple choice and typing it is incredibly time-consuming.
If the teacher is serious about teaching and learning and uses test return as an opportumity to correct errors and review, the same test and even the same questions can’t be used again becaus everyone has the perfect answers, so a new test with completely different questions has to be made up from scratch. If it isn’t multiple choice, the teacher also has to make up a new answer sheet and marking rubric.
If the school is one where students politicize every single mark, the teacher may be called up to justify the equivalence of grades on the different forms of the test.
After spending several hours doing that, then the teacher has to take the time to administer the new test. It really should never be done in class time because if the student misses the new material while retesting the old, you are just snowballing the problem. (An argument I had with a number of my (failing) college students, who did not understand why they should use their “own” time to try to improve their grades … ) The teacher ends up missing lunch or staying extra time after school, not able to prepare other work or whatever. Then of course the teacher has to mark the new test.
And of course you have the “fairness” police, who demand that if anyone else can do a retest they can too; the teacher can either fight them, taking up time and energy and causing smoldering bad feelings, or can let anyone do the alternate test, taking yet even more time and extra work. And those who ask for re-re-tests ad infinitum.

One or two retests, no problem. If it gets to be an issue that is making grades meaningless and taking up all the teachers’ time, the school might put a ban on retesting for the sake of sanity and preserving an environment centered on teaching rahter than marks.

Hi, actually I was unclear, it is a district policy or so I am told. I am in teacher education classes so I guess I will soon learn about all you just mentioned.

Unfortunately, I blame my son’s 8th grade teacher for this mess. He had a policy that ALL students with less than a 70 could redo tests and assignments. Since he was such a horrible teacher, my son ended up doing almost all of his classwork twice during the whole 8th grade yr. and still only barely passing. He did quite well in 9th grade Alg I.

Anyway, we had test retakes on my son’s incoming 9th grade IEP, we were told about the no retake policy last year but no one came to us with an alternative so the accommodation stayed. This year they didn’t put it on the draft and we refused to sign it. Basically this is only an issue in math. Also, my son did not abuse the accommodation last yr, he used it two times for the whole year.

My understanding from both of my college teachers who are also sp.ed teachers is that surrounding areas allow this, only my city doesn’t. We are in the Hampton/Newport News/Va Beach/Norfolk area.

It just seems that a district blanket policy negates the idea of individualized education plan.

Obviously it is more complicated than I thought.
Thanks,
Amy

You know it’s serious when they fall back on the policy. Gee whiz.

I bet the policy is that every students makes his/her own notes or every student organizes his/her own binder, EXCEPT when the IEP states otherwise. That’s what IEP’s are for.

If its such a foundational policy, then how come a teacher could run his program in contravention? or is it only a policy when they want it to be?

sorry but re-testing says you are interested in the student’s acquistion of knowledge and not just when the acquisition took place. Retest as needed is not too weird, unlimited retests might be. You are not asking for the moon. Most teacher’s manual come with more than one test per chapter or unit or a bank of test questions on cd. Yeah, its a hassle but a minor one. Many experienced teachers teaching in the same area will have several old tests at their fingertips. The issue is wanting to do it. One of our teachers had this great poster last year -” If everyone gets what they need, its fair but not equal. If everyone gets the same,its equal but not fair.”

You can make some assumptions about the teacher or school. hmm.

The question becomes if it is needed only twice a year, does this head your battle list? Yes, they should accomodate you in this but is there else also pending?

mmm — some of us are responsible, creative teachers who do not simply follow teachers’ manuals. Once in my entire career I had a science series with excellent backup and prepared tests that were well-designed, but the rest of the time I’ve made my own from scratch.

I actually posted a reply on Monday but it disappeared into the ether.

We had the IEP meeting, instead of a retake, my son will get a pretest in the format of the real test. Basically the same thing if you think about it but hey…if it helps him succeed I am for it.

I think the point of my original question really is ‘can an adminisitration make a blanket policy to rule out an accommodation for all kids’. It still doesn’t seem legal somehow. What if it were something like, no extended time will be given. Anyway.

Victoria, mmm, thank you both for your help. I just know you are both probably awesome teachers. I have done some observation recently of about 13 elementary teachers and while all have a different way of doing things almost all of them were excellent teachers (I have some reservations about the 5th grade math teacher, and have had those observations confirmed by a parent I met after I was finished with observing).

We’ll see how things go. Thanks again.
Amy