Two months into the school calendar in Washington DC, the math tutoring has started again. Unfortunately, I am starting this session as disenchanted as I was in May; when I arrived for my first session last week, the coordinator asked me to come back the next week at a different time, because they had a particular student in mind, and they wanted me to work with her. I felt flattered, I suppose, and agreed to change the date and time of the weekly tutoring to accommodate their schedule.
This week, when I arrived at the school at the appointed time, the coordinator grabbed me and said "okay, let's go find you a student." We arrived at the classroom, and the teacher pursed her lips, looked around the room, and selected a student. The look on her face revealed this girl thought she was being pulled out of class because she was in trouble. Standing in the hallway outside the classroom, we did quick introductions (neither she nor her parents had requested a tutor), and the coordinator reassured her that she was selected because she was smart. As we walked back to the classroom, the coordinator told the student that "we just really need someone to score well on the standardized tests, so we picked you." (This was our "directed" focus last year, as well.)
As far as I've been able to see, while standardized testing does return individualized scores, the SAT-9 scores are designed to be reviewed in aggregate, to measure a school's performance, and are generally not used for individual student assessment. Again, unfortunately, this student is being told that "learning math" is not important when compared to "doing well on the test."
I don't want to go back, now. I do not want to be in a position, yet again, of working with students in an attempt to prop up the school's test scores, instead of working with them to actually teach them. What is even more discouraging is that the schools cannot provide the students with accurate study guides--last year's guides were incorrect (the story talks about the guides for grades 1-4, but the junior high study guides were riddled with errors as well).
I'm left with indecision--do I continue to work with this student, who is clearly very bright but did not ask for help? do I hope that she will benefit from one-on-one tutoring and not worry that the coordinator is asking me to do test prep? or do I decide that the cost of attempting to help one student is too high...Argh. I'll keep tutoring, I know I will. But I might mention to this student that she and her parents should consider looking for a charter school for her.
