Three times each school year, LAUSD elementary teachers must give the DIBELS to every student.
The teacher must sit in the back of or on the side of the classroom with each student for 15 to 20 minutes. The students read to the teacher while the teacher follows on a computer. In Kindergarten the students identify letters.
While the teacher is working with each student individually the other students must work without teacher assistance. Some elementary classes have 35 students. Think about the time lost to the class while the teachers must give this superfluous test. Think about Kindergarteners needing their teachers.
The DIBELS like all the other tests costs money that could go to instructional materials, reducing class sizes, and repairs.
Why? Because the downtown administrators say so.
The teachers already know their students' strengths and weaknesses.
What happens to the scores? Each student is tracked from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. In some cases the districts sells the data.
Just a gross waste of your tax dollars making the test publishers richer, the schools poorer, and the children less educated.
Every teacher that I talked to thinks that DIBELS, like all the other tests, is a tremendous waste of time and money.
But then, no one asks the teachers!