This is the first year of state standardized testing for us, although I saw it last year in a different school district. I thought that district was ridiculous in that the kids were prepped for probably 8 weeks ahead of time. Practice test after practice test. Going through the practice tests with explanations of every answer. Then they had 1-2 assemblies/ pep rallies with one of them involving staff dressed up in goofy clothes. I thought maybe it was just that district and ours wouldn't be like that. But DD has been prepping for at least a month. For the last two weeks she hasn't had math homework and doesn't appear to be covering any new concepts (which would still be too easy even if she did but better than reviewing the same stuff over and over). The teacher has them write in their planner "Practice for test" but never says what in particular they are supposed to be practicing. There are a good number of kids in that class who would pass the test without any prep at all, yet they are forced to suffer through these sessions. DD wants to do her enrichmenet packet for math (which kids in the "gifted cluster" are supposed to be doing on their own a few times a week), but the teacher won't let them, saying the "prep" is important and there is no time. I'm getting extremely annoyed and would never do this, but am so tempted to tell DD to guess randomly on the test and get it done in 5 minutes just as a form of revolt, since everyone is always complaining about her being so slow. It would be pointless to "opt out" (assuming that's even allowed here) because she would still have to suffer through all the prep for weeks on end. I'm just curious how many other people have encountered this and if you tried to do anything about it.
Just wanted to add that DD's teacher emailed me that DD is "spaced out" in the mornings during math and I wrote back and said maybe she'd see less of that if DD was given math that is the correct level, and that DD hates the math they do in class and says it is very boring. I said it more tactfully than that, but that was the basic gist of it. She never replied.
