Testing Season, Recipe for Failure

Semester Notes

The semester is closing in as we begin our slow descent into the standardized testing season. When MAP results roll in next fall, we already know what the local newspaper's headlines will say. We already know there will be more - perhaps significantly more - "failed" schools in our district and across the state. That's the way No Child Left Behind is set up, and that's how it will play out.

Recipe for Failure

Take a federal mandate, apply catchy title
Insert lofty, unreasonable goals, measure only with standardized tests
Deny funding for implementing objectives and goals
Sprinkle the surface with political rhetoric
Stir with the specter of privatizing public schools . . .

Bake under the heat of political hot air and apply ample pressure to building administrators and teachers, and there you have it: a sure-fire recipe for failure by anyone's measure. Everybody involved in public education should know this by now, yet few will talk about it publicly- especially at the administrative level. What's a teacher to do? Well, we've already done one thing . . . we have voted. There is no need to hitch our wagon to failed policies regarding public education, and the November election results should translate into meaningful changes in public education. Beyond that, we do what we've always done . . . connect with our students each day and work diligently toward giving them the quality education they deserve.

PSRS/Social Security Changes Postponed

Fears over the PSRS/SSA snafu can be put on hold for at least another year - hopefully nobody made any big career moves as a reaction. Our hope is that the entire matter will be resolved with a measure of common sense in the year to come. A big thanks to Senator McCaskill, Jay Nixon, MNEA and others for working on this issue and at least postponing further action until there is a better understanding of how it affects public education across the state.