The Controversial Comma and Millions and Millions Of Dollars

I'll freely admit that punctuation is not my strength when writing this blog and it bothers me.  When writing my last post I knew exactly what I wanted to say but became a little frustrated because I know the placement of the commas was probably wrong.  Know this, I decided to check with my part time consultant, part time editor, and full time spouse on the matter.  When she read the text the first thing she told me is I had to change punctuation in a particular place to a question mark.  After that change she said you are starting a new sentence so the first letter of the word needs to be capitalized.  Thanks I said and then I asked her about the placement of my commas.  She looked at me and said there is a lot of controversy about the use of the comma and what you have looks fine so just go with it.  Being curious about the comma controversy I decided to do a little research.  The first reference I checked state that the comma has been around since the 3rd century BC during the Byzantine period.  A second source I found stated that Aldus Manutius developed the comma during the 1400's as he was working on the slash mark that eventually was reduced in size to a comma.  With two very distinct time periods claiming the invention of the comma I beginning to see my wife's point about this controversy.  I decided to continue my investigation and came across a comment that said that half the time the comma is not used enough and half the time the comma is used to often.  Well great, now what do I do.  I know, I'll just put a comma where I want to and hopefully no one will notice if I used it incorrectly.

I received a message from a new reader of my blog not too long ago and it seemed that he was a little critical because he thought I "favored the teachers."  I know this critic as he is the offspring of Schackie and Virg from Bay City.  I also know that he has probably only read two of my posts so hopefully he'll reconsider his position should he choose to continue reading my blog.  For naming purposes, I'll refer to him as Mout (it rhymes with ought) and hopefully he'll continue to share his opinion with me.

All right, time to move on to the millions and millions of dollars.  If you've read this blog for any length of time you know that I'm not a fan of politicians and the pointy headed intellectuals that feed the politicians with the nonsense that comes out of their mouths especially when it comes to mandatory statewide testing.  So today I decided to find out what it costs the tax payers in the state of Indiana to fund the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) plus some of the other mandatory tests.  Here is what I found and please note that the dollar figures are for a two year period.  Also note that while these companies gave a proposal to the state of Indiana I'm not sure if their proposal was actually accepted as of this date.

A British company called Pearson will be responsible for preparing the ISTEP and IRead3 tests.  This task was formerly the responsibility of CTB-McGraw Hill put they lost the renewal due to the controversy surrounding the last ISTEP testing process.  Pearson's bid for creating the actual ISTEP test was $38,000,000 and their bid for creating the IRead3 test was $7,500.000.

CTB-McGraw Hill has proposed a total cost of $60,000,000 to prepare the practice tests to take the actual tests.  Here is a breakdown of their costs.

• Science (Kindergarten through 2nd grade) - $7,000,000.
• Social Studies (Kindergarten through 2nd grade) - $7,000,000.
• English (3rd grade through 10th grade) - $13,000,000.
• Math (3rd grade through 10th grade) - $11,000,000.
• Science (3rd grade through 10th grade) - $11,000,000.
• Social Studies (3rd grad through 10th grade) - $11,000,000.

A company called Questar Assessment will create the high school end-of-course exams for $7,500,000 and the alternate assessment for students with special needs for $5,000,000.

Also participating is a company called College Board.  They write the SAT and Advance Placement test and they will create a graduation exam for $10,700,000 plus a test that would determine whether students are ready for college for $624,381.

A New York City-based company called Amplify will write practice English tests for Kindergarten through 2nd grade for $3,000,000.

Finally, Strategic Measurement and Evaluation, and Indiana-based company will write practice math tests for Kindergarten through 2nd grade for $900,000.

When I shared this list with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse she simply said, "and exactly what were the final results of all this money being spent?"  "The test results show only very minor increases in test scores."  For the record, ISTEP in Indiana was first administered in 1988 and that was twenty seven years ago.  Here we are about to start the 2015/2016 and what do we have to show for obscene amounts of money Indiana spent on testing?  Indiana is still ranked near the bottom in education on a national level.  Many, many years ago Jefferson Airplane, with Grace Slick doing the vocals, produced a song called Volunteers.  Here are a part of the lyrics, "Hey now it's time for you and me, got a revolution, got to revolution," and tax payers need to put a stop to this obscene waste of tax payers dollars.

One last item.  I talked to Gnu a few days ago.  We'll start the new year with six scholars.  There will be three from last year (EM, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Grr!) and three new scholars and one of the three is a girl.  MiniJ, who we thought would return, is not as apparently this parental unit(s) moved again. If it is true that his parental unit(s) moved this will be his fourth school in the past year. 

I'll be back in the classroom on July 30th.  The scholars will arrive on August 3rd.  I'm out.  Thanks for sticking around.      

They Are Under A Full Frontal Attack By The Lowest Life Form

Dear pointy headed intellectuals and politicians, you've been doing your best for a number of years now to blame teachers for all of the ills in our schools.  Well, today, I've decided to stand with you on this position with one caveat, you also have to support the following initiatives.

First, parents are to be evaluated on their scholars behavior.  If their scholar acts responsibly and enjoy good repute in the community, their parents should receive a good rating.  If, on the other hand, their scholar causes annoyance and trouble or raise Cain in their town, the parents should receive a poor parent rating.

Second, doctors should be evaluated on the health of their patients.  It wouldn't matter that there was no known cure for a particular ailment, or that the problem stemmed from heredity, poverty, or childhood neglect.  Nor, would it matter that these doctors might have repeatedly implored their patients to take their meds or warned them of the link between smoking and cancer, overeating and heart trouble, drinking or liver disease.  Nor would it matter that they told their patients that if they ignored their advice, they would bring on a stroke, or perhaps even die!  No!  These doctors simply aren't motivating!  They're ineffective!  They should lose their licenses!

Third, clergy should be evaluated on the lives of their flock.  It would be beside the point that these men and women of the cloth were saints, whose goodness and humanity inspired all of whom they met; that they preached with the tongues of angels, possess a faith to move mountains, and consumed themselves in urging all to lead a good life.  No!  This wouldn't count!  If there were reprobates and malicious gossips in their folds who destroyed reputations, they should be defrocked!

Fourth, that these ratings be made public.  Knowledge of parental accountability would insure immediate improvement in their scholar's behavior.  Knowledge that doctors were now held publicly responsible for their patients' health would instantly move people to take scrupulous care of themselves.  Likewise, the certainty that the clergy would be held publicly accountable for the lives of their congregations would inflame their flocks to reach the highest level of sanctity.

Fifth, let us now proceed to the politicians!  Well, on second thought, I'll leave that to you.

As I've said on a number of occasions I am not a pointy headed intellectual so it is time to fess up.  These are not my ideas.  They came from an article written by Frank Breslin, a retired high school teacher, that I came across while perusing the internet.  While I'd like to wholly support these ideas I know, as did Mr. Breslin, that they are absurd and will not be taken seriously.  What I did find interesting, though, was Mr. Breslin's summation of his article that I'll share with you.

Mr. Breslin speaking.  Absurd proposals?  Of course they are!  But why are they any less absurd than singling out teachers alone and evaluating them on the performance of their students, who are after all only children, when society has been trying to make adults behave responsibly since Adam and Eve?
What is it about America that makes it take a leave of its senses in imposing on teachers alone such absurd expectations which it wouldn't dare impose on any other profession that deals with adults, let alone immature, rebellious, and defiant children?  Is America so desperate for scapegoats that it willfully ignores the nature of children and the many outside influences upon children's learning and behavior beyond teachers' control?  Every parent and teacher is aware of these elementary facts about children, so why aren't politicians and educational "reformers," many of whom also are parents?  Which leads to the following question: What is this policy of evaluating teachers on their students' performance really about?

Mr. Breslin raises a valid question and despite my advanced years and a lack of a Mensa status I believe I know the answer.  It's the complete and total failure of politicians and their posse of pointy headed intellectuals to put forth a clear and concise plan on how to address Indiana's historically low educational rating when compared to other states in our country.  I wish I had tracked closely the plethora of directional changes that have taken place in education over my thirty five plus years as a resident of Indiana.  Every time the highest political offices in the state changes hands the education policy goes in another direction.  If the same politicians happen to maintain they political positions for successive elections rather than tweaking their current education plan to make improvements they blow it up and go in a different direction.  Take the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) for example.  How many times has it changed directions?  Take the test in the spring; take the test in the fall; no, let's go back to the spring; no, let's go back to the fall; and what the hell, let's just make the test longer and harder.  That's absolutely ridiculous and for those of you outside the state of Indiana, say in Europe or as far west as Utah, let me tell you about the results of the longer and harder test that these politicians and their posse of pointy headed intellectuals devised.  It was a disaster as parental units and teachers united in voice to state their outrage at what they were seeing.  This ground swell of outrage became so intense that the politicians and their posse of pointy headed intellectual changed course and shortened the test which is again another change in educational direction.  All of this is totally ridiculous and the fault for the failure to educate the scholars in this state rests solely on a total lack of direction at the highest levels of education in our state.  And once the politicians and their posse of pointy headed intellectuals sensed that people are looking to blame them for all these failures they needed a scapegoat and who did they choose, the classroom teacher. 

That's it, I've stated my case and if you disagree with me and still want to blame the classroom teacher and not politicians and pointy headed intellectuals I'm fine with all of that.  However, if you do side with the politician and pointy headed intellectuals I may be tempted to think that you also believe that the moon is made of cheese and those little green things you see lurking in your neighbors bushes are Martians. 

The new school year starts in seven days, I'm out.  Thanks for continuing to read the musing of an old guy who will have a view from the back of the room for another one hundred and eight school days.    

Did They Pass or Fail

At the end of the last blog post I mentioned that I was meeting Gnu for lunch at one of my favorite locations, Vino Villa.  The weather was a little shakey as rain seemed eminent but that didn't keep us from meeting.  I arrived first and despite the cool weather I decided to sit on the front porch.  Shortly after my arrival Gnu showed up and she was carrying stuff.  The fact that she was carrying stuff didn't surprise me because we were meeting about school and if you recall she was pretty excited about the upcoming school year and wanted to show me what she was working on.  Before conducting official business drinks and food were required, after all, it was lunch time.  I knew Gnu like chardonnay so we order a couple glasses from a winery called Seven Falls.  Gnu ordered the asparagus wrap and I ordered the lobster macaroni and cheese and we split a Greek salad.  As I sit here thinking about my menu selection I had to laugh as I'm sure people that know me very well are probably wondering what the hell was I eating.

On to the academics.  Our talk centered on two topics, EM's dyslexia and Gnu's end of the school year evaluation from the Big B.  She pulled out a three ring binder that she prepared specifically for EM and another scholar with dyslexia, Grrr!  As she leafed through the pages of the binder it was easy realize that she planned to attack the dyslexia issues with full force.  That made me feel pretty good as EM, who wants to be able to read so bad but can't, may finally make some great strides in his reading ability.  When the conversation switched to her evaluation I got a little animated.  Using Gnu's words, the evaluation "didn't go very well."  As I listened to what she had to say I kept thinking to myself how could this teacher, who just did this wonder job of teaching, get an evaluation that didn't go very well.  And then it came out as the state and/or school corporation mandated test scores were a big part of the conversation and I got a little hot.  So that's what it's all about, test scores.  No matter how much you excel as a teacher it is all for naught if the scholars fail the tests.  There was an article in the Indianapolis newspaper about a shortage of teacher applications.  According to the article, The Indiana Department of Education reports the state issued 16,578 licenses to first-time teachers in the 2009-2010 school year.  That number dropped to 6,174 for the 2013-2014 school year.  That is a drop of over 10,000 licenses issues to first year teachers over four years and now people are getting nervous.  When you consider that pointy headed intellectuals and politicians will judge a teacher solely on how well scholars do on a state mandated test and disregard all of the good things that a teacher accomplishes it's no wonder that college age students are avoiding teaching profession. 

Ok, did they pass or fail.  Because a number of you have been around for a while I'm going to incorporate the fifth and sixth grade classes into this review.  I'll start with the upper grades and work backward.

6th Grade

AromeA - graduated and is moving on to middle school.  Although I didn't get to speak to him after graduation, I was told that he will be going to a charter school for the next school year.  I started working with AromeA when he was in the third grade so it was a good feeling to watch him mature and manage his ability to control his anger.  While there were still incidents where he thought he was in charge and could do what he wanted to during the day, the aggressive outbursts where he'd tear up the classroom declined significantly.

5th Grade

CorP - was promoted to the sixth grade.  CorP is as close to a success story that you can get.  Back around Thanksgiving he was placed into a general education classroom.  That's a huge step and he remained there for the rest of the school year.  Later in the school year he got a little lost emotionally and that caused some concern but he got himself back on track.  Red flags went up right at the end of the school years as I got word that CorP's behavior at home took a turn for the worse as he showed signs of getting particularly aggressive with his parental unit.  That troubles me greatly as this is one of the scholars I really like and I guess I'll see how he is doing should if he returns to our school next year.

Straw - had a pretty uneventful year and was promoted to the sixth grade.  I can't think of any incident where he had a violent outburst and that is good news.  There were a few incidents where he'd just show up in my classroom and when he did I just say to him, "you need a timeout?"  He'd say "yes" so I'd let him sit by me in the back of the room until he got himself under control and then he'd go back to his classroom.

Floss - continues to be a time bomb waiting to explode but was promoted to the sixth grade because he does well academically.  He did not have a good year behaviorally.  In fact, it was so poor that he was placed on half days and I'm not sure that helped.  Right at the end of the school year his teacher, Knew, mentioned that he is just like his male parental unit.  When I asked what that meant she said, just like his male parental unit, he can't control his anger.  Right now I believe his male parental unit is in jail because of anger control issues.

4th Grade

Wide - promoted to the fifth grade and rightfully so because he did well academically.  At the same time being in the fifth grade makes me nervous as Wide is an instigator.  His target this year was primarily The Collector and there were times he paid the price and got smacked up the side of the head by The Collector.  Next year he will be with Floss and if he starts agitating Floss he has the potential to get hurt.  Although Floss and Wide are only one grade level apart, Floss is twice the size of Wide so hopefully Wide will recognize the size difference and keep a safe distance from him.

Yo! - despite the fact that he literally did nothing academically for the majority of the year he is going to the fifth grade.  As a reminder, Yo! started the school year in our classroom but due to bullying issues with our second grade scholars he was transferred to the Knew's classroom with the fifth and sixth graders.  Like Floss, Yo! is on a path to self destruction in my opinion.  Although I don't see him having serious anger control issues like Floss, he has a defiant disposition especially when it comes to female school teachers and I suppose females in general.  There were a number of incidents during the school year that the respect he showed for Gnu changed dramatically when I left the room.  During one incident he intentionally threw an object at Gnu that just missed her head. When I returned to the classroom during this incident he was still up and in his defiant mood until he saw me standing in the room.  He looked at me and immediately shut is defiant attitude down and returned to his seat as I know with no uncertainty that the look on my face was all he needed to see.  Like Floss, Yo! only came to school half day.  Floss arrived in the morning and left at lunch and Yo! arrived at lunch time and went home at the end of the school day.  Next year they will be together all year and that is a scary thought. 

The Collector -  will be going to the fifth grade despite his mediocre academic performance this year and this bothers me a little.  I spent two years with The Collector and did a lot of one on one work with him.  This was particularly true when he was in the third grade and I felt good about his ability to accomplish academic tasks.  This change progressively during the fourth grade as the longer the school year went on the less work he did.  I believe this occurred for two reasons.  First, there were too many scholars in the classroom and while I worked a lot with The Collector I also had other scholars at my desk.  That didn't set well with The Collector as he had to share our time together with other students.  The second reason his academic work dropped off was the arrival of Wide as these two just were not compatible in the classroom plus it was usually Wide who sat with The Collector and I at the back table doing academics.  The Collector and Wide are not compatible and just think, they'll be in the same classroom next year. 

Leftside - although he was only in our classroom for the last three or so weeks of the school year he is moving on to the fifth grade.  Academically he did a decent job for the three weeks he was with us and behaviorally he wasn't much of a problem so hopefully he will continue to do well next school year.

3rd Grade

EM - frustrating, frustrating and damn frustrating that this very nice young man is stuck in a Catch 22 situation.  He has no business being in a classroom with scholars with emotional handicaps as he has none.  He has no business being in a general education classroom because he can't read.  EM clearly has a dyslexia problem that is seriously holding him back reading wise but despite this, he is going to the fourth grade.  Yes, I'm aware that a scholar who can't read is getting promoted to the fourth grade and I know that is just wrong.  At the same time how do you hold back a scholar because the school corporation has failed him, the special education overhead department has failed him, the school leader has failed him, and the two individuals in the classroom charged with educating him failed to do their job when it came to this particular scholar.  Frustrating, frustrating and damn frustration and it gets worse.  Gnu told me when we had lunch the other day that the special education overhead department is considering a move for EM to another school.  And why are they doing that?  We don't know except that someone thinks he should go to another school where people totally unfamiliar with him will be given the task of educating him.  Hopefully someone with some sense will put a stop to this and EM will be with us in the fourth grade where Gnu already has a plan to help him improve his reading.

2nd Grade

MiniJ -  promoted to the third grade and rightfully so as his reading ability jumped three levels and is just about reading at grade level.  From a behavioral standpoint I believe MiniJ made the most progress.  When he first arrived in the classroom he would get like a raging bull when he was angry.  During one of his worse anger episodes he tried to flip over Gnu's desk at the front on the room.  He came close as he actually had one complete end of the desk up in the air but couldn't quite flip it over.  At the end of the school year, while he still got angry, it was nothing like the beginning of the year.  This progress was the result of a team effort by IvyL, Oreo, and Gnu working with him closely when they recognized he was about to erupt.  It was also very help that MiniJ's nemesis, NoFouls, transferred to another school at the end of the year. 

Uh-Uh-Uh - promoted to the third grade and I believe rightfully so.  For a good portion of the year she was not very inclined to do the academics but as the year progressed she got more involved in the academics and was a pretty good scholar.  From a behavior standpoint she was not much of a problem.  Sure, she'd get angry, stand very rigid with her arms folded across her chest, and have the I'm mad look on her face but that was pretty minor when you consider the anger level of some of the other scholars.  It wouldn't surprise me when the new school year starts that Uh-Uh-Uh will be placed in a general education classroom.

1st Grade

Grrr! -  this is an interesting scholar and to be honest I'd don't know if he was promoted to the second grade.  Ya, I know that is pretty sad commentary coming from an instructional assistant that just spent the majority of the school year with this scholar seated right in front of him.  Grrr! came to us after the start of the school year as he started out in a general education classroom.  That didn't last long as his anger control issues resulted in him being transferred to our classroom.  Due to his anger issues he only attended school for about an hour a day.  Even with that little time in the classroom it was very difficult to get him to do any academics.  Like EM, Grrr! has a dyslexia issue and probably reads even less than EM and if he looked at an academic assignment and didn't like what he saw he would just shut it down and say, "there is no way you are going to get me to do any of the work," and he just wouldn't.  No matter what grade Grrr! is in next year he will be a challenge as anger control issues and dyslexia plus some anxiety issues will be tough to overcome. 

That's it.  The school year is over.  Unless parental units decide to relocate over the summer Gnu and I will start the new year with EM, MiniJ, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Grrr!  Gnu was already informed that we will have a new scholar coming from another school and possibly one of the first grade scholars from our school will join us.  That will put us at six scholars and only two grade levels.  I can live with that.

In case you are wondering, the new school year will start on July 30th but there will not be any scholars in the classroom until August 3rd.  Thanks for continuing to stick around.  I'm out.


 

The One Hundred and Eightieth Day

Although I wouldn't call it the highlight of the year it was still pretty special as we had a guest reader come to our classroom.  Who might be this guest reader be you ask, it was my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse.  When the day arrived to read to the scholars I sensed she was a bit nervous because she is familiar with the potential eruptions that can happen in our classroom.  To put her at ease I said if anything goes wrong don't get involved and just stay behind me.  I'm not sure if that helped any but she did show up with books in her hand.  When she walked into the classroom I had the scholars introduce themselves, which they did, and it surprised me a little as to how well they did it.  The scholar that I watched closely for a reaction was The Collector as he was the most familiar with my wife as he has seen pictures of her and talks about her occasionally.  When he introduced himself my wife said "well hello The Collector, I've heard so much about you."  That caught him off guard and embarrassed him a little.  During the reading, which took place at my desk, all the scholars stayed on their best behavior and they enjoyed the stories.  Grrr! was standing right next to my wife so he had the best view of the stories and would comment on them.  At one point my wife said to me how impressed she was with Grrr! and his familiarity with the stories.  I said to her that he was pretty smart for a scholar who can't read a lick and she gave me that look that said, what?  After my wife finished reading and it was time to go I asked her if she'd like a tour of the school and she said yes.  When the tour was finished and we were heading to her car she told me how impressed she was with the school.  Impressed is one of a few select words that I was hoping to hear as this was her first time inside the school.  Now, all I have to do is get a couple hundred thousand others to visit our school corporation so they can see it is nothing like what is portrayed in the media.  Opps!  I almost forgot the best part.  As we were touring the school I asked my wife what she thought about the scholars.  She said, "they're just so cute."

A couple blog posts ago I mentioned how much I enjoyed working with Oreo and IvyL.  As further proof of how wonderful these two individuals are let me tell you this story.  Morning announcements just ended when Oreo walked into the classroom and asked Gnu if she could take the scholars with her for a few minutes.  Gnu agreed and off they went.  They gathered with IvyL in Oreo's office to put their plan in place as they wanted to do something nice for Gnu as she has successfully completed her first year of teaching.  I knew what the plan was so I wandered up to Gnu's table at the front of the room and removed a couple objects.  She looked at me wondering what I was doing so I said I needed to clear out a space on her desk.  Just as I got back to my desk Oreo arrived and walked up to Gnu's desk and sat an empty flower vase on it.  Then IvyL opened the classroom door and in walked the first scholar, MiniJ.  As he walked up to the front of the room he was carrying a flower and a brightly colored piece of construction paper that was laminated.  He handed the flower to Gnu and then read what he wrote on the construction paper.  When he was finished he handed his paper to Gnu and sat at his desk.  Then, one at a time, the rest of the scholars repeated the process with their flower and construction paper.  On the construction paper was a hand written note with drawings that each scholar made.  They wrote one thing that they enjoyed about being in her classroom and then said thank you to her for being their teacher.  It was a joy to watch especially when a few of the scholars actually walked around Gnu's desk to give her a big hug.  I've heard many times from people who question why I continue to work in such a tough environment.  When you can tell a story just like the one I just told, you can see first hand why I do what I do and that I'm going to do it for another school year.

It's the one hundred and eightieth (and last) day of the school year and there will be no academics today.  Today is cleaning and throwing out day as we prepare the room for the custodians to come in and strip and wax the floors over the summer.  After lunch it's movie time.  Today's selection is The Goonies.  My daughter always enjoyed watching this movie and by it's rating I'm thinking it's safe to bring into school.  The scholars are excited as they like this movie and start moving desks and chairs around so they can sit together on the floor with an unobstructed view of the movie.  Gnu is at her desk moving papers around and half paying attention to the movie as she has seen it a few times.  I'm at the back of the room watching the scholars because they are too many scholars sitting way to close together and that often is not a good thing.  About five minutes into the movie, right about when the Fratelli brothers break out of jail and are escaping with their Mamma driving the car, I hear one of the characters say as clear as a bell "shit!"  I look at Gnu and she's looking back at me.  Now what do we do?  We decide to let the movie continue but we are paying much closer attention now.  A few minutes later Chunk makes his appearance as he excitedly runs into the house and promptly knocks over a Greek statue.  If you were paying attention during our Greek Mythology lesson you'll recall that often times Greek gods are naked when posing for their statue.  As this statue of a male Greek god hits the floor the Goonies quickly run over and pick it up.  They immediately recognize that the penis was broken off the statue so they are trying to put it back on.  Our scholars are in an uproar laughing and pointing at the screen.  Gnu's is up, I'm up and the movie ends.  It's now time for the scholars to entertain themselves for the remainder of the day.  It was right at 2:15pm what I walked up to Gnu and quietly said, "in seventy five minutes you will complete your first year of teaching."  She looked at me, smiled, and said "I know."

It's 3:30pm, the Big B reads the final announcements for the school year, the scholars are packed up and they are heading out of the building.  Grr! only goes to school for part of the day and he left in the morning.  EM was absent the last two schools days so his "stuff" is set aside for next year.  Wide heads out the door to the car rider pick up point where his Nanna is waiting.  Leftside departs and he is headed to the area where the walkers gather.  Gnu is leading The Collector, MiniJ, and Uh-Uh-Uh to the busses and I'm in the room putting it back together for one last time.  When Gnu returns she tells me that she has to work tonight and needs to get going.  I say ok and tell her not to worry about closing the room up as I'll take care of it.  Within two minutes she has gathered her stuff and is out the door.  At 3:55pm I turn out the lights and close the classroom door. 

Since the school year ended the weather has not been very cooperative.  We've had cool weather, rain, more rain, and very heavy rain to the point that I have a pond with ducks in it in my back yard.  In fact, as I'm again sitting on my screened in porch it's starting to rain.  Time to move inside. 

By the way, I received a text message from Gnu a few days ago.  When I saw that it was from her I got real nervous.  The previous school year, when I worked with BaseG, I got a text message from him in the middle of the summer telling me he found another job and was leaving.  With this in mind I opened up Gnu's text message.  To paraphrase, "I've been working on the next school year and I found some material that I think will help EM with his dyslexia problem."  "My significant other (sorry no names) is building us a much sturdier bookcase for our library and he is going to attach a cushion to the top of it so the scholars can sit on it and read."  "I'm so excited that I can't wait for the school year to start."  Start?  Oh my God, it just ended I think to myself.  Sensing her excitement I sent a return text message and ask if she would like to meet for lunch.  She said yes.  We'll be meeting at one of my favorite locations, Vino Villa, at high noon.  A text invite was also sent to Oreo and IvyL so maybe they'll show up.

Rain, rain, rain!  Maybe I'll move as far west as Utah as I hear it is the second driest state in the country.  I'm out.  Thanks for reading the blog.


        

For Nine Percent Of A Calendar Year They Are In School

A while back I came across an interesting article that a good friend in Bay City, Michigan posted on his Facebook page.  I'll call my friend CGfromBC to be consistent with not using real names and causing anyone any issues.  The article was about teaching and the amount of time a scholar spends in a classroom.  I'm not sure what the length of a school year is in Bay City so I recalculated the numbers based on the length of the Indiana school year.  For those outside the state of Indiana our school year lasts 180 days or 4,320 hours.  Of those 4,320 hours, a scholar sits in our classroom for 810 hours with Gnu and spends 3,510 hours at home with their parental unit.  As I thought about these numbers what struck me as most interesting is that Gnu only has 810 hours to prepare a scholar to advance academically to the next grade level. 

Before I go any farther I have to remind you of something.   I do not have a teaching degree or license, I am not a member of a teachers union, I am certainly not a pointy headed intellectual, and I can tell you with no uncertainty that I am not one of the lowest life forms, a politician.  What I am is an almost sixty six year old guy that has spent the past three school years with a view from the back of a classroom and I continue to be concerned about what I see and hear.

This is what I see.  A dedicated teacher that only has 810 hours to advance the academic level of a scholar.  I also see this.  Our school year is broken up into four quarters and at the end of each quarter Gnu prepares the report cards.  I don't have any input in the grading process but I do get to see the report cards before she hands them out.  I suppose if I saw something unusual I could question it but so far that hasn't happened.  Alright, time to play a little game.  As a reminder, the number of scholars in my classroom had a low of four and a high of eight during the school year.  Knowing this, how many times do you think a parental unit expressed an interest in their scholar's report card?  While you are thinking I'm going to play the Jeopardy song that you hear during the final Jeopardy question.  That will give you thirty seconds to make your best educated guess.  Times up, and your final Jeopardy answer is......

Once!  During one grading period Yo!'s parental unit wanted to know why his grades were so low.  Gnu's response was pretty simple, he doesn't do any work.  Throughout the year, as soon as an academic period would begin, he'd start whining and complaining that the work is too hard.  There were even incidents where he would get up and walk out of the classroom rather than do the work.  Although the official answer to the Jeopardy question is once, Uh-Uh-Uh's parental unit once asked why her scholar didn't receive any academic awards.  Again, Gnu's response was simple, because she missed too much school.  After Uh-Uh-Uh's parental unit asked this question I checked our attendance records.  Counting excused and unexcused absences plus being tardy Uh-Uh-Uh was either absent or tardy for thirty four percent of the school days completed at the time I did the analysis.  So many of our scholars are products of P.P.P. that I don't defend their parental units very often but I will for just a little bit.  For some reason our scholars don't like showing their parental units their report cards.  It's fairly common that our scholars will cram their report card into the back of their desk, in the back of their cubby (locker), or down in the bottom of their back pack.  Why they do this is an unknown because they all do the academics and their grades, with the exception of Yo!'s, are decent.  So why do the parental units show so little interest in their scholars grades?   I guess God only knows and that is frustrating because sitting down and reviewing a scholar's report card is the best time to get an understanding of where your scholar is succeeding or failing in the classroom and then put a plan in place to build on their successes and address their failures.  Sadly, that doesn't happen.  Even sadder, this lack of parental unit involvement can negatively impact the future of a lot of fine educators when their scholar fails academically.  

This is what I hear.  The state of Indiana is ranked somewhere between fortieth and fiftieth nationally when it comes to education and this is the result of teachers who are failing to perform at an acceptable level.  Like all teachers Gnu will go through an evaluation process as we approach the end of the year.  Given the solid academic year that we've had I can't image there will be any "needs improvement" boxes checked on her evaluation.  If there are then the person doing the evaluation needs to spend a little bit more time in our classroom during the observation period.  Even though Gnu, in my opinion, excelled this year there is still a concern about how she will be evaluated by my school corporation and other pointy headed intellections who have never stepped foot into our classroom.  You see, our scholars did poorly on the state mandated IRead3 and ISTEP tests and when that happens eyebrows are raised and their is the potential that someone will questions Gnu's abilities.  Yes, that's absurd but that is also the reality of being a school teacher.

This is what I'd really like to hear.  On the local, state and national level, elections are slowly approaching.  As the elections approach politicians and the pointy headed intellections that spoon feed them the information that they think the populace wants to hear will at some point address Indiana's dismal education record.  When they start doing that, sitting right square in the middle of the bulls eye will be the classroom teacher and probably the public school system.  When this starts to happen I wish some citizen or better yet several thousand citizens will stand up and say, "Mr. Politician, the scholars in our state only spend nine percent of an entire calendar year in a classroom so why do you solely blame the teachers and schools for their academic failure?"

I'm once again sitting on the screened in porch on the back of my house.  Their are a pair of mourning doves in my backyard that built a nest in a blue spruce.  They are steadily flying to and from the nest feeding their young.  Sitting in a pine tree about fifteen to twenty feet from me is a sharped shinned hawk eyeing lunch.  I'm about to interrupt his lunch plans.  Thanks for continuing to ready my blog.  I'm out. 

PS - In case you forgot, P.P.P. means piss poor parenting.