The devious nature of test prep

We received the following e-mail from our principal today:

"Congratulations! According to our ThinkLink results, our scores on the third test showed:

Third Grade – 90% Advanced and proficient in Reading/Language and 91% Advanced and proficient in Math

Fourth grade – 90% Advanced and proficient in Reading/Language and 86% Advanced and proficient in Math

Thanks for your hard work. Now we just need to get those scores the week of April 20th."

Yeah, just the encouragement I need to do even more test prep exercises. It's also easy to see how easy it is for teachers to feel their jobs are tied to test scores.

We rarely get e-mails or recognized for how great our kids learned how to write about what chores they hate doing around the house, or what they plan to do on rainy days. How about the fact that my 4th grade ELL students came up 100 different dresses to draw and describe after we read The Hundred Dresses?

Nope, we get positive affirmation for our test scores. Yipeeee

A classic case of too much time on their hands

Al Gore is one of two things to most people, he's either the great messiah for climate change awareness to the masses or he an arrogant, preachy, fear-mongering, fact-twisting has-been. (Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of his methods, he's using the same methods used in the 1920s Red Scare, we'll frighten people into doing something, facts be damned)

But one thing Al Gore is; commited to his message that global warming is occuring and that we need to do something about it. Because he has accepted all the good with his role, namely millions and millions of dollars and a Nobel Prize he has also left himself open for some deserved and much undeserved criticism.
The latest in the undeserved categoty is this posting from Drew Johnson head of The Tennessee Center for Policy Resaerch. Tha article if from The Nashville City Paper.

"I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.
In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters” or “Chelsea Lately” reruns.)
The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.
I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees."

Johnson also pointed out Al Gore's excessive use of energy in 2007.

But like any good politician, Gore responds; (rather his spokewoman does)
"The Gores honored Earth Hour by shutting off the lights at their residence. The heating and air conditioning were turned off as well. But more importantly, the Gores live in a Gold LEED certified home, powered by geothermal power. They have undergone renovations to put solar panels on the roof and participate in all of the renewable power programs offered by their local utility. They aren’t perfect, no family is, but they do their best, year-round to try to make a difference at home and across the country to make a difference on the climate crisis."

First, who cares if he left a few lights on or not?
Second, there are much easier things to criticize Al Gore about than this, this is the definition of petty.

Free flip-flops

Soles4Souls, started right here inMusic City, is giving away flip-flops to many kids in MNPS and today they are at my fair educational facility. They aren't fancy pink ones with hearts on them or black ones with IronMan but they are free and it's hard to find a kid who doesn't love flip-flops.

If you don't know about Soles4Souls here is a quick summary of what they do;
"Soles4Souls has a simple mission: To impact as many lives as possible with the gift of shoes.
Soles4Souls facilitates the donations of shoes, which are used to aid the hurting worldwide. Shoe companies, retailers, and individuals can donate footwear (both new and used). Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS, and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages.
The idea behind gifts of shoes is nothing new to the Soles4Souls team, as they coordinated relief efforts for the Asian Tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, netting over 1 Million pairs donated for these disasters. The team originally operated as www.katrinashoes.org with several churches partnering in the collection and distribution of footwear.

Official press release from Soles4Souls:

"Soles4Souls will be delivering much needed summer shoes to Nashville area schools through April. On March 27th, we will be visiting ---------- Elementary and distributing shoes to the entire school after lunch! Summer fun!"

Shoes, not toys Daddy

While birthday shopping at Target with my daughter, she told me she had looked at enough toys and was ready to look at something else.
What?!

Anyone with a six year-old can imagine the shock that went through my system when I heard this. Every six year-old lives to check out each toy aisle just to see what's new and what toy they have to have, this is a great development I thought.

It means no more Littlest Pet Shop, I have yet to figure out which animal is which;
...the end of Polly Pocket and the 10,000 little pieces that come with each model . . . and oddly enough she had enough Barbie dolls already. (Can I have an amen!)

In my excitement over this development, I stupidly asked her what she wanted to look at instead . . .

"The shoes Daddy" she replied
Damn it...

Civll War re-enacting without the war part

This article is from Appleton Wisconsin, a hotbed of controversy. The district has decided that they are not going to allow the 5th graders to re-enact a Civil War battle any more. A few parents were upset that the re-enactment didn't fit with the schools anti-violence policy. They made their point to the decision-makers and convinced the district to cancel the event.
What about the students? They loved it. They still get the daylong educational program without the 20-30 minute battle re-enactment.
One of the students showed more wisdom about the re-enactment than any of the adults involved in the decision-making process.
Said Jamie Cronce;"The battle was like the climax of the whole day," she recalled. "It was what everyone was looking forward to. I guess (school leaders) are looking at how violent it was, but that's how history was."

From the Appleton Post Crescent:

"A school program designed to offer fifth-graders a feel for conditions faced by soldiers during the Civil War will no longer include its most popular feature.

The daylong education program will proceed as before, but without the 20- to 30-minute battle segment, Judy Baseman, assistant superintendent for the Appleton Area School District, said Wednesday. The battle segment was scratched after a group of parents raised concerns it conflicts with violence-prevention efforts and a district policy banning look-alike weapons at schools.
Jamie Cronce, 17, who participated in the mock battle as a Huntley Elementary School fifth-grader in 2003, said Wednesday she understands the district's position but disagrees with it.
"I can see where they are coming from" on the policy question, said Cronce, a junior at Appleton North High School. "But I don't think they should be altering the lessons they are teaching because of school policies."
Cronce said this year's student participants are bound to be disappointed.
"The battle was like the climax of the whole day," she recalled. "It was what everyone was looking forward to. I guess (school leaders) are looking at how violent it was, but that's how history was."
Parents of the nearly 800 fifth-graders scheduled participate in this year's Civil War programs learned of the change in letters distributed March 5.
The letter stated the battle portion of the re-enactment was dropped to fit with district policy "related to weapons" and efforts to promote "the desired school climate."
Nan Bunnow, the district's director of humanities, said principals of the 15 participating schools recommended the change to program leaders. Bunnow said students were generally disappointed, but complaints of the change from parents have been few.
"This has been such a popular and important event to the students, we hadn't really thought about (the violence)," Bunnow said.
"I know Johnston (Elementary School) had one parent that came forward" to protest the change, Bunnow said. "I think there have been a couple at Franklin, but it hasn't been a whirlwind of controversy because it's only the last 20 minutes of the event.
"With everything we've been doing with anti-violence and anti-bullying policies … we knew we had to take a look at this."
A group of parents concerned about the battle re-enactment began contacting school district officials last summer, Baseman said. The resulting review showed the Civil War re-enactment groups that made the program possible had eliminated battle segments from events held in other school districts after similar concerns were raised, she said.
Baseman said some students will carry the mock weapons during marching exercises, but not in combat situations.
"They'll learn about what it's like to be a soldier, but they won't have that one moment in time when they are attempting to shoot at and kill each other out on the battlefield," Baseman said. "That is the only aspect that is going away."
Baseman said students at Fox River Academy, which had withdrawn its participation in the re-enactment because of the battle segment, chose to rejoin the program this year after learning the battle was dropped.
Jean Herron, a parent of three children thrilled to participate in the mock battle as fifth-graders and a school counselor in the district, said she recalls mixed emotions when taking pictures of the battle when her son participated in 2002.
"It was exciting, but then … I remember thinking, here we have an entire park full of kids fake-playing like they were killing each other," Herron said."

Testing season has begun, teaching is done

With 4 days until Spring Break begins, the kids have Friday off, we have meetings, I have begun the best time of the year, testing season.

Our state testing does not begin until April, but those of us who teach ELL will not get to wait until April to start our testing, we are giving our ELL students the ELDA test this week. The ELDA is a standardized test designed to evaluate an ELL students' readiness to succeed in a non-ELL classroom. The description should any brochure for a vacation spot blush.

"The ELDA is designed to measure the annual growth of English language development in the domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing of limited English proficient students. In addition, it will also yield a score for comprehension. The ELDA is aligned to state standards and has vertical alignment across clusters to measure growth in proficiency.
Also, the ELDA has five levels of performance standards, with a rigorous definition of full English proficient (FEP) at Level 5 and a realistic definition for beginners at Level 1. The listening, speaking, reading, and writing tests of ELDA are designed around four topic areas (three academic and one social): math, science, technology; English language arts; social sciences; and school environmental. This design will help schools determine if ELL students are linguistically prepared to function in mainstream content classrooms. Still, ELDA is a test of four language skills, not of academic content, and therefore, there are no content area prior knowledge requirements to score well on ELDA. "

Wow, only 2 acronyms, usually there are at least 10.

After giving my students the three reading sections this morning, we are now play catch-up. No time for SS and Science today, I've lost over 2 hours of teaching time and now have to get in all the reading and math possible.

I also have to "progress monitor" 6 students with the DIBELS test, one-on-one while the rest of

the class is engaged in... something. Another 30 minutes per day or so lost.

With three more sections of ELDA to go including the daylong Speaking section which is one-on-one, I expect to do about half of what I do in a normal week this week.

I can't wait until we get to even more high-stakes testing which will waste at least 6-7 days.

NashVegas: America's manliest city

Nashville likes to bill itself as Music City USA, and the home of the Grand Ole Opry now we have another name to add to the list; America's Manliest City.
Nashville came out on top in the study conducted by Sperling's BestPlaces. Mars Snackfood US and its Cmbos snack food brand commissioned the study. A well-respected research company that everyone has heard of.
The least manly city; New York.
Cities lost ranking points for "emasculating" characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.

Nashville grabbed the top spot in the ranking thanks to its high number of NASCAR enthusiasts, popularity of hunting and fishing, and concentration of barbecue eateries.
Despite high ratings in the bowling category, New York City came in 50th because it apparently lacked in areas such as fishing, home improvement and drag racing.

As much as I agree with everything the study said about NashVegas, could we please, please have an IKEA here. If Austin can have one there certainly has to be a place for one here in Music City or Manly City.

How to almost ruin a vacation in one sentence

Last Wednesday evening I planned to fly from NashVegas to Denver for a ski vacation. I had my stuff all packed, ticket and boarding pass printed out and at the airport the required two hours ahead of time. I took my carry on and strode up to the ticket counter. The nice lady behind asked me for my ID which I promptly handed to her, then it happened.

The lady asked me if I had another ID that wasn't expired...huh....WTF?!....WTF?! My drivers' license is no good?! Sonofabitch... And sure enough, my license had been expired since I turned 40 earlier in the month. Expired without notice from the state, no reminder to renew, anger. Not at the airline agent but at the situation and the ramifications of not having proper ID. Now there would be no rental car to drive myself to the mountains and hit the slopes, I would have to hope that my brother and sister in-law wouldn't mind driving me the hour+ to the ski areas.

Upon my return to NashVegas, I will look forward to the time I will get to spend getting my license at the DMV. Hell Yeah, time well spent.

When I landed in Denver, my Verizon phone could not find the network, turning it off and on, nothing; just the same message: No Service. Luckily I brought my old phone and was able to change phones so I could call and stay in touch with my family.

I finally got a phone that worked my wife left me a message saying to call her ASAFP. Great I thought, everything else has gone so well, this has to be good news. It was even better news that I thought; our bank had called and said they had found some charges on our check card that seemed unusual and they were going to cancel the ones we had, on Friday, and send us new ones...in 3-5 business days.

Super...no ID and now no way to pay for things except cash. Anyone know how many places won't take cash anymore? Too many. Ski rental; use the card to reserve them and maybe pay with cash, lift tickets; one window accepts cash and there might be someone there or not.

All this has happened before I have skied one single run, I haven't even gotten my skis yet, that was a smaller fiasco on Thursday; it would at least wait until I'd had a bourbon or two.

Despite all this I skied three incredible days in Colorado, three days of powder, and three days that made me forget how lousy the trip started. It snowed the first two days I went and it was cold enough that most people stayed home so we had the mountain pretty much to ourselves Thur and Fri. Saturday it was a nuthouse but there was still some powder and who could ask for anything more than that?

I am so grateful that my brother and sister-in-law who drove me around for three days, and put me up in their house. I'm going back to Colorado soon, probably not this season but for sure next year, I just love to ski too much to not go back.