Today....

Got a new student in my 8th grade Language Arts class. Before the student actually showed up in my room, I was informed this was his first day of school for this entire year.

He comes to us from out of state. They say when his mother enrolled him this morning, she was a nervous wreck having run with her children from a dysfunctional, chaotic relationship. Reportedly, she was barely functional, and it was difficult even getting the paperwork filled out.

The young man was placed in my fifth period Inclusion class where there are already eight Special Education students of varying levels of ability and varieties of disability being mainstreamed. He makes nine. Among the General Ed. population of that class, a couple more kids struggle to the degree we pull them, as well, when we need to work more closely with some of the Inclusion students.

According to the counselor, my new student's reading ability and comprehension range is somewhere between 1.5-2.0; first year grade, fifth month to beginning second grade. Then there is that troubling detail about not having stepped foot in a classroom in 2011 until October 20.

In talking with him, I could tell he was nervous, as any new student entering late in the year would be. I could also tell he didn't have the first clue about the four kinds of sentences, run-on sentences, or clauses- dependent or independent- we were discussing in review for tomorrow's test. Judging from his mumbled, incongruent responses, I also suspect he understood little of anything I was saying to him in general.

All I could do was sigh. No point in being angry or frustrated. It won't change a thing.

My co-teacher and I will have to find out where he is academically and teach him at his level, but at the end of the year, despite his late start and his academic shortcomings, he will have to take and pass the 8th grade level Math and Reading CRCT.

Now there are those in government and in the private sector who would assess an individual teacher solely on the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on those tests. There are those who would award merit pay to schools and teachers whose students demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" based on those scores.

As if that one set of test scores provides the only snapshot needed of a school's or its teachers' abilities and effectiveness. As if test scores tell the whole story of a students progress or lack thereof. As if students aren't kids, multidimensional human beings with backgrounds and baggage they bring to school with them that factor into the quality of the experience.

As if.

All I can do is sigh, give the children the best I have, and push on.