No one's leaving MY kids behind doggone it. Oh no. Thank goodness for the Mandatory Testing program that ensures my little darlings are neatly sliced, diced and shoved into the appropriate pigeon hole because without that I might never, ever know just how many percentile points are above or below them.
Actually I think in my city these darn tests are a means of reminding us that we are eternally grateful for certain States To Be Left Unnamed which keep us from bouncing off the absolute bottom of all of those national results (except for things like teen pregnancy and drop-out rates - we rock those! Play to your strengths, that's what I say).
Our middle school failed mandatory tests so many times it was into the even more fun Mandatory Re-organization phase. According to the new principal things were so bad they were supposedly going to have to fire the entire faculty and staff. Yeah. I thought that made a heck of a lot of sense as well: eviscerate the school and then turn around and say, "NOW you're going to pass those tests, aren't you!" Right. To avoid that the idiot school reworked itself as a "Arts Magnet School." Except... they didn't train any of the teachers to be arts teachers, they didn't hire anyone new, and the one Golden Apple teacher they did have (who was a music teacher naturally) had to quit because their new schedule made it impossible for him to teach at the other two schools on his contract. Bravo guys, bravo.
So I might be just a little bit down on the whole mandatory testing thing, particularly when this one is just for the sophomores (and my poor Child who wasn't in the area for sophomore year and thus gets tagged for this year) and the other three years get another day off school. I mean, nothing really says commitment to academic achievement like state mandated time off, now does it?
It doesn't help that the other two naturally are not being tested and so might, just might, have been a little smug about sleeping-inness and other glories that happen when school is out. Gits.
The poor Testing Child dutifully roused itself (its own self! This is a new and impressive thing brought about by my loving and detailed threats), dressed, secured its pencils and wandered mournfully out to the bus stop.
Which is why it was so particularly annoying to get a phone call from said Child letting me know that it had waited in the cold for half an hour before giving up and calling the school to find out that the bus had broken down. So Mandatory Test day now becomes Mandatory Make Up Test Days later this week. Child assures me that it will not be missing any classes in order to do this but for some reason I'm having a hard time believing it.
I wonder why.
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3 comments:
Well what can you expect out of a school system that is run by a mayor that goes behind the backs of the working citizens of " " and signs a contract with a company that has a line of work of taking pictures of traffic violations at street lights and a governor that spent countless amounts of dollars on refurnishing his office building with marble floors and god knows what else maybe gold toilet seats and don't forget his collections of private jets. Why, would one man need three jets. Honestly I don't think he's that great where he could be in three different places at once. Gotta love their party.
Awww - don't you like our splendid gov? Didn't you enjoy the part a few years ago where he fluttered his little eyelashes and loudly rejected a vp nom that had never been given? Also I believe he holds the world record for most hands shaken in a given period of time. A. why is that an award and B. who counts these things?
i think my pants actually froze.
i met the splendid governer once. he can be described with one word.
"patronizing."
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