Sorry if this background is long:
Our school recently switched our testing program and we give the students 4 times a year an interim test to see whether the students are learning the standards for ELA and math.
Since the beginning, all the scores have been pretty terrible. I'm not going to whine about the test results, clearly we all need to figure out how to better prepare the students for them.
The math students for the last test did amazing. My kids did poorly, again. I got pulled into the office yesterday to talk about my bad test sores. I am in big trouble and a constant theme was "The math department did great! They figured it out!"
I know how the math department did great. They printed out the test ahead of time, gave it to the students piece by piece and taught the material of the test. THEN they gave their midterm with the exact same questions. THEN the kids took the interim test.
My boss is "requiring" me to do these quick checks the interim test program "offers" yet I cannot find these quick checks anywhere and she just says "They're there somewhere." And I am supposed to retest the kids in two weeks.
The math dept head came in today to give me "suggestions" per my boss which was to give the kids the test and answers ahead of time. She spoke frankly that, "If she wants good scores, give her good scores."
I am so panicked by all of this. I do actually love the math dept head and she's been at the school forever. Snitches get stitches, anyway. Yet I will never ever be able to compare to her scores if she continues to do what she did.
Note: I HAVE been teaching the students the materials, but somehow the translation from what I teach to these tests are not transferring over. I gave a midterm that had similar questions, and the kids did extremely well. And I AM taking responsibility for it. I just know I can't compete knowing this other info. It's overwhelming. I don't want to resort to what I consider cheating.
tl:dr Teachers give an ELA/Math test 4 times a year. Math dept getting high praise for good scores, without boss knowing the kids got the answers ahead of time. I'm expected to have comparable scores to them. I don't want to cheat the system or be a snitch.
What should I do?