The Test Won

4/6/26

Camila Isopo

I attended a selective enrollment high school over a decade ago. I was an upperclassman when we were visited by the then mayor to announce us receiving $1 million. I remember many of us being annoyed that his visit would interrupt our regularly scheduled programming. Access to the library was blocked off for those of us still needing to print our assignments because his speech was televised in there. And they were able to visit, with their cameras, the class that they chose, in the middle of instruction. And of course, it was my French class. I remember thinking that I was happy I chose to wash my hair the day before. 

Most importantly, I remember all of us in my classes asking why we had to have this visit, why we had our schedules interrupted and access to key areas restricted, and why we were to receive this huge amount of money over the many other schools in the city. We knew we were doing just fine without it. There were schools in the city that needed it more. Students who were as smart and as gifted and as important as us, and they needed this money more. But they weren’t ever going to receive this large gift. And so we questioned it. 

We were predominantly white. I wouldn’t say affluent but we were less poor than others. And we got this money we didn’t think we needed more than others. 

Twelve years later, I’ve gone through this situation that has confirmed to me this one truth: the test won and I hate it. I was a brand new teacher at a school I loved that I thought I could fit into while being myself. And before that first year was up, I was fired. 

The year before me, the students took their IAR tests and scored poorly. They lost rank and their target group was the students with disabilities. This happened for several simple truths. Number one: students with disabilities test poorly for a variety of reasons and that’s why they have their programs. Number two: this is a small school.

Number two is really important. The population of students with disabilities in an average school will only ever be a certain percentage of the total population of students at said school. Since the school is small and the students with IEPs tested poorly, it looks as if the school is doing poorly. At least test-wise. 

What’s the problem with that?

Leadership is micromanaged. Teachers are brought in more “support.” People also get fired over things like this. Over time, rankings can get worse and more “support” is given to leadership and teachers.  But, for schools with poor ranking, they can lose much needed funding.

This is what we don’t get. And we never did…Us smart kids, we never understood why the kids who were doing just fine…got more funds than kids who really needed it, as shown by their poor performance. And ironically, what decides they don’t get funding? The poor test scores. The lack of academic growth, as per state tests. 

Give the money to the kids who need it. Wiith the system that exists now, teachers who love their kids and are loved back by them, who really are performing everyday magic in their classrooms, get punished for it. Just like I did, because my growth “wasn’t consistent,” and this “wasn’t sustainable” and the students have significant needs, and they need to test better because they’ll lose funding as a school in the future should the test scores not be higher.