Test THIS!

This is an odd week at school.  We are testing.  FCAT testing.  Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test Testing.  To quote the official rhetoric:  The FCAT is part of Florida’s effort to improve the teaching and learning of higher educational standards.

HOLD UP!  WAIT A MINUTE!!! Before we go any further, let’s break this shiz-nit down.

Effort to improve the teaching and learning of higher educational standards?  If you want to improve the TEACHING, then improve the teachers and teaching methods.  Don’t give a flipping test.  If you want to improve the LEARNING the give the kids some motivation other than YOU’RE NEVER GONNA GET OUT OF SCHOOL IF YOU DON’T PASS THIS TEST!  Is positive motivation really such a foreign concept?  Higher educational standards?  HUH?  What the heck does that mean?  We are teaching and learning educational standards?  Really?  Says who?  How about just teaching them how to THINK.

Onward in the official rhetoric…..The primary purpose of the FCAT is to assess student achievement of the high-order cognitive skills represented in the Sunshine State Standards (SSS) in Reading, Writing, Math and Science.

STEP OUT!  Is anybody else struck by how close SSS and SS are?  Am I the only one thinking blitzkreig here?  All references to Dubya Hitler aside…We are assessing achievement of high-order cognitive skills.  That means, can they think?  BUT WE DON’T TEACH THEM TO THINK!  The curriculums are all about learning facts, figures and processes.  THOSE things are easily assessed.  Assessing thinking ability?  Not so much.  Assessing thinking ability by using a standardized color-the-bubble test?  Well – what do YOU think?

The official blahblahblah goes on….but my blood pressure can’t take it any more – so I am gonna stop here.  You get the gist of my opinion I think.  If anyone is still not clear – just ask me, I’ll explain in words of one sylable which will not tax your thinking ability at all.  No Child Left Behind indeed!

By the way…you don’t get out of grades 5 or 8 without passing the "benchmarks" on these tests.  You don’t graduate high school without passing the 10th grade benchmarks.  We’re not just assessing – we’re holding children back (but not leaving them behind – because it is, after all, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND).

Rant over.  I promise.  No really.  I’ve got it out of my system now.  For a few minutes anyway.

Our school has apparently gotten some sort of community grant and so will be starting an after school program in a couple of weeks.  This is not an academic program so much – more of a community center type program.  I’ve been asked to be one of the teachers which will be great for my wallet!  However my key question has yet to be answered – You want me to teach cooking – will I have money to buy supplies?????

Cassidy has become quite the social butterfly since his "coming out" here in that last OD entry in my diary.  Right now his little friend Diamond is over to visit.  Diamond lives with my daughter’s boyfriend and today Cassidy and Diamond had a play date.  They went to the puppy park together.  Just like children – they are more wired up and less tired NOW than they were before they went to use up all their energy at the Puppy Park.  Currently Diamond, who is about one-third Cassidy’s size is sitting under my chair gnawing on Cassidy’s rawhide bone and growling ferociously at a very bemused looking Cassidy.  Poor Cass…he’s such a pushover!

I really like the new deputy at our school.  He has a great sense of humor, he communicates well with the teachers, he keeps tabs on the students and  remains friendly with them, and he doesn’t act like he’s better than everyone else.  Speaking of the deputy – here’s just the last 4-5 days MAJOR activity at my school.  Windows in 3 classrooms broken out, a teacher assaulted by a student, a student apprehended with weed and a knife, a student accused of rape.  Does reading that make you worry about your kids?  It sure makes me wonder – and my daughter is a mere 3 months away from graduation.

Speaking of my daughter – Lord help me.  I KNOW she just turned 18.  I KNOW that teen-age girls are HELL.  I KNOW that all this anger and angst is really fear.  I KNOW its not about me.  I KNOW she loves me.  I KNOW that someday this will all be really funny.  But for today – I WONDER how I’ll make through another 5 minutes of teenage daughterdom.

Did anyone notice a bright star in the east this past Sunday night?  I’m sure there must have been one.  The last time there was a miracle THIS BIG, there was a star in the east, shepherds and wise men.  Since nobody has dropped any exotic spices at my door….and there are no sheep in the yard, I’m betting there was at least a bright star.  My dad APOLOGIZED to me Sunday night.  If you only knew my Dad, you’d understand.  He has NEVER apologized to me for ANYTHING before – EVER.

There are a couple of handy man type things that need doing at my house – and Daddy usually does them.  Sunday nothing was going right and he couldn’t get even the simplest little repair to work out right.  So he was surly, nasty, grumpy and rude to me.  Really, I’ve learned after all these years to expect this type of behavior so I only find it mildly annoying and not devastating any more.  He went home in a huff.  Later the phone rang….and he aplogized.  He said he wasn’t mad at me, he was mad at himself.  I said something loveable and daughterly like…bub bub bub…..

I gotta go get to bed to get ready for another day of that marvelous day of FCAT testing.  Yahooie!  Oh goodie.  I can hardly wait.  Higher level skills….here we come!!!!!!!