Number 2 Pencil

Judging the books by their covers

Does California's legislature think it can improve education by shortening textbooks?

The California Assembly is betting that kids learn more with small books. Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages. The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education.

Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly...But Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, said critics are thinking too narrowly.

Well, yes, you could consider this "revolutionary" in the same way that banning textbooks altogether would be. That is to say, it could have a profound effect, and not necessarily for the better.

So where are all those excess pages going to go? Why, they've become URLs:

AB 756 would force publishers to condense key ideas, basic problems and basic knowledge into 200 pages, then to provide a rich appendix with Web sites where students can go for more information.

Doesn't this assume that every kid in California has free and easy access to a computer? Doesn't this mean that only those kids with the access and the desire will be exposed to that extra knowledge? Why not let kids stay home and have all the classes and textbooks online, while we're at it?

The Mercury News is incredulous:

...Who knew that making a textbook longer than 200 pages was such a bad idea that there needs to be a law against it? Well, 42 Assembly Democrats knew. On Thursday they approved AB 756, a bill by Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, that says: Neither the State Board of Education nor a local school district "may adopt instructional materials that exceed 200 pages in length.'' Textbooks, the bill's supporters argued, should sum up the basics and then refer students to the Internet and to libraries for the rest. Plus, shorter is lighter and cheaper.

Maybe. Their assumption doesn't seem that obvious to us. It seems like something that ought to be decided -- just brainstorming here -- by actually reading each proposed textbook, as opposed to laying down an arbitrary limit.

The bill doesn't jibe with other instructions (some from the Legislature) that textbook publishers have been getting to avoid textbooks that are just dry columns of words. They must be full of pictures and charts. And in each subject, they have to cover the state's comprehensive curriculum requirements. This makes them longer.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call this silly bill "bookburning," but the Claremont Institute is doing so:

Following the Sacbee report, other reports on this bill have referred to its "textbook" restrictions in length, while the bill's text refers more broadly to "instructional materials." Thus, books of American political or historical documents, short stories, poems, or memoirs more than 200 pages in length would be forbidden. The number of books that could not be purchased by the California public schools would be rather impressive: Frederick Douglass's Autobiography, virtually any classic novel one can think of, and any book by Winston Churchill and any other great history.

One of Joanne Jacobs' commenters had this to say about Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, the sponsor of the bill:

Only a teacher in L.A.(like me) who for years watched the inane and harmful Jackie Goldberg poison the LAUSD with her Leftist dogma and idiotic motions...then to be elected to the state Assembly, to continue with her thumbing-the-nose and giving-the-bird to Calif. taxpayers, parents and students....can just smile painfully and wonder why the morons in her district keep reelecting her. Dumbing down the textbooks is just the tip of the iceberg...

What else doesn't Jackie Goldberg like, in addition to long textbooks? "Redskins" as an athletic team name, the Iraq war (which she protested after the Iraqi elections were held), gun safety education in schools, and bills that would prevent minors from getting body piercings without parental consent.

Her statement in the body-piercing article is priceless:

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, cast the lone "no" vote on the bill. Requiring parental consent takes away one of the more innocuous ways for teens to rebel, she said. The government should not be stepping in to tell children about body piercing, Goldberg said, and lawmakers should be more worried about other issues, such as funding schools.

"It will probably get signed ... and it will sound like we will be protecting kids," she said. "We just get too carried away in telling everyone what to do."

But she has no problem with telling every school in California to limit instructional materials to 200 pages, it seems.

(Via Captain's Quarters.)

Update: Quincy has more over at News, The Universe, and Everything:

Ms. Goldberg’s argument has constructivism written all over it. “No need to learn it, you can always look it up!” The basic problem with this is that doing all that websurfing takes time. The reason textbooks exist in the first place is to collect a lot of useful information in one volume that is readily accessable. It takes but a second to say, “Turn to page 201.” Imagine the time wasted if teachers had to send their kids to the web to download and print their math exercises, rather than simply turning to the page in the book?

Does hitting parents in the wallet help keep kids in school?

One Arizona tribal council wants parents to pay the price for their childrens' truancy - literally:

It's a classic problem. How do you make sure kids get to school on time? One Arizona community says the answer is simple: you charge parents each time a student is late or skips school.

Weary of poor grades and low graduation rates, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation families are being fined if their kids skip school or arrive long after the bell rings.

The tribal council is fining parents $100 a day the first time a child is significantly late or absent. That fine goes up to a maximum of $300 a day for repeat offenders.

Let's hope the council works with parents to help them establish more control over their children. I believe many parents today feel that schools are a big part of undermining their parental influence; it would be extremely frustrating for a parent to feel as though they have no say over what their child learns, but will be hit in the pocketbook if their child doesn't listen.

No cigar for you!

Lessons learned in school in the 21st century: It's okay to make fun of the president, but heaven help you if anyone thinks your free speech is supportive of smoking.

Posters that depicted President Bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained. Theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message.

Principal Kenny Lee ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills area last week on grounds that they promoted smoking and "endorsing one ideology over another."

"That's our take on the student speech and conduct," Lee said.

Does this mean that Marx Brothers' movies are banned as well?

(Via Joanne Jacobs).

Tougher standards do not cause preschool violence

The Education Gadfly scoffs at the notion that violent preschoolers are produced by higher academic standards:

The Times reporter rustled up the requisite couple of experts to lament that pre-schools have become places that replace "block sets and dress-up rooms" with "alphabet drills and quiet desk work." "The notion of standards are [sic] coming down almost to the embryo," grumped one such expert. "We are not allowing normal, creative, interactive play. We are wanting kids to sit down and write their names at 3..."

What's behind that dire development? (Are you still on the edge of your chair?) Nothing other than the federal No Child Left Behind act, which, claims the Times, is a cause of "the push for academic-centered preschooling."

Good grief. If we have learned anything about schooling, it is that young children have the best odds of succeeding there if they arrive having already mastered a host of skills by the time they reach kindergarten. When Bill Bennett, John Cribb, and I wrote The Educated Child a few years back, we strove to itemize those skills and, to our own amazement, the "kindergarten readiness list" occupied four pages...

The United States is sorely overdue for such a focus in all its pre-school programs. But that doesn't mean you should picture tiny tots sitting in big school desks with dictionaries in front of them. Anyone who has witnessed a well put together pre-school knows that cognitive skills can usually be imparted with very little pain via activities that are also fun—not to mention nurturing.

Of course that calls for pre-school teachers who know what they're doing. And it's helped considerably if parents do their part, too. But as a country we'd be far wiser to try to solve those problems than to accept the nonsense of the New York Times and its hand-picked "experts," namely that pre-school should shun intellectual development and cognitive skills. The kids would be better served, too.

The wrong way to show off that little butterfly tattoo

Listen up, angry moms - there's a reason Basic Instinct wasn't filmed in a schoolyard:

Working out a disagreement like a mature adult was not an option for Donna Maria Thomas. The 42-year-old North Carolina mother is accused of exposing herself to her daughter's assistant principal.

Authorities in Raleigh, N.C., say Thomas, 42, had a contentious history with officials at her daughter's high school. On May 17, she picketed the school board's headquarters...

Thomas reportedly saw the high school's assistant principal, Darnell Bethel, arrive for a doctor's appointment across the street and went to confront him. She prevented the man from entering the building and then lifted her dress and exposed her buttocks.

Sughrue said the woman was not wearing any underwear. Bethel reported the incident to authorities and a warrant was issued.

One of the charges was simple assualt. Just how bad was that rear view?

Revising history

The Farkers today were abuzz over the story that, between 1958 and 1967, Charles Lindbergh fathered seven illegitimate children by three mistresses in Germany. The tale is fascinating, but a particular sarcastic comment caught my eye:

This just seems too ironic for me, because Im remembering a reading passage excerpt on one of my SATs. I don't remember if it was an article, a book, or just simply a debate between two people, but the author claimed that Lindbergh was a hero who wasn't afraid to be "classy". I believe (although it seems I'm vaguely remembering), the author claimed him to be a hero of a generation who wasn't sinful, lustful, etc.(the classical generation) unlike this new generation was. "Lindbergh was a good man, who lived a good life, and he didn't get into any trouble for dumb things these kids were doing now-a-days", this was basically the author's point.

Now of course, I'm laughing my ass off after reading this. Oh, he's "classy" indeed!

If this was in fact on the SAT, perhaps this particular reading passage should be retired from the pool and not used in future practice exams.

Suing to be first

The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the would-be valedictorians are tossing fits - it must be Spring.

...All is not perfect in the lives of Pawel and Joanna Keblinski and their daughter Julia, 17, a Shenendehowa High School senior. She's ranked second in her graduating class at Shenendehowa; they think she should be first.

"There are no words that can express our pain over the fact that our daughter was refused her due right to an honor that she has worked for for four years," the family wrote to district officials.

The Keblinskis believe Julia should be named valedictorian at the area's largest suburban school for scoring a 99.33 cumulative grade point average while completing six Advanced Placement classes, plus honors courses.

But the district recognizes Julia, the treasurer of the math team, as salutatorian of her 640-student class. Her average fell just below that of Ben Plog, a running back on the football team and aspiring physician, who she says didn't take as many accelerated courses.

Shades of Blair Hornstine! The New Yorker has a delightful article detailing the fits, the lawsuits, and the overreactions that transpire each year as graduation nears:

Some schools, responding to the critique that competition has got too bruising, have decided that naming a single valedictorian is part of the reason that today’s students have become so anxious. (Many small private schools came to this conclusion long ago, and never adopted the valedictorian tradition.) An organization called Stressed Out Students, which is headed by Denise Clark Pope, a Stanford education professor, has a list of about twenty-five schools, mostly in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, that have pledged to try to make students and their parents less driven...

A number of schools now call everyone who gets a 4.0 or higher a valedictorian. At Cleveland High School, in the San Fernando Valley, there will be thirty-two valedictorians this year. At Mission San Jose, in Northern California, there will be twenty-three...

The single-valedictorian tradition is also being endangered by lawsuits. In 2003, Brian Delekta, who narrowly missed having the highest G.P.A. in his class, sued his school district, near Port Huron, Michigan, asking that he be credited with an A-plus, instead of an A, for a work-study class that he took at his mother’s law firm. (In addition, Delekta asked for a restraining order on the publication of class rankings.)

Restraining orders! Good grief! Little Brian sure picked up some interesting legal ideas around that firm.

Other valedictorians in the news as of late are Miriam Cattanach, whose school wanted to honor her as top-scoring student but didn't trust her to speak properly about religion, and Abraham Stoklasa, who allegedly threatened his principal and insisted on telling bad jokes in his speech.

Joanne Jacobs notes that controversy isn't avoided even when schools don't have valedictorians. Some people, it seems, can't stand to see any reward/prize/opportunity go to only one worthwhile student.

Minding the gap

One overwhelming benefit of NCLB is that schools must break down test scores by ethnic groups. The NYT discusses the impact of this regulation:

No Child Left Behind requires schools to bring all students to grade level over the next decade. The law has aroused a backlash from teachers' unions and state lawmakers, who call some of its provisions unreasonable, like one that punishes schools where test scores of disabled students remain lower than other students'. But even critics acknowledge that the requirement that schools release scores categorized by students' race and ethnic group has obliged educators to work harder to narrow the achievement gap.

"I've been very critical of N.C.L.B. on other grounds," said Robert L. Linn, a co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. But he called the law's insistence that test scores be made public by race and ethnic group "one of the things that's been good."

At least 40 states compiled scores by racial and ethnic groups before President Bush signed the law in January 2002. (In New York, scores broken down by ethnicity were first made public in March 2002.) But even though scores were publicly accessible, many schools felt little pressure to close the gap before the law required that they show annual improvement for each category of student, including blacks, Latinos and American Indians, or face sanctions.

The debate rages on as to whether a top-down regulation like NCLB can help fix such a long-standing problem as the achievement gap, but when schools are forced to make such data public, they're likely to do everything within their power to shrink that gap. Some schools are more effective than others:

In the Pascagoula School District in Mississippi, where 43 percent of black sixth graders scored at the proficient level in math last spring, compared with 83 percent of whites, Superintendent Hank M. Bounds recently ordered all 60 or so district administrators, even directors of technology and security, to tutor low-performing students.

For Diana Krebs, the nutrition director, that has meant that after overseeing lunch for 6,000 Pascagoula children each day, she has driven to East Lawn Elementary school to work on arithmetic after school with four fourth-grade girls whose teacher said they needed extra practice.

"It's like helping your children with homework," Ms. Krebs said.

But not all states are focusing on the gap with equal energy, or in ways that will help minority children, said Enrique Aleman Jr., an education professor at the University of Utah, leaving him with what he called "conflicting views" on No Child Left Behind. Until last year he lived in Texas, where he said the law had seemed to turn his son Diego's elementary school into a testing factory.

"My son was bringing home practice tests every day, and that's not real education," Dr. Aleman said. "My view from Texas was that N.C.L.B. was hurting the kids it was supposed to help."

Test, then tutor, then test again. Too many schools are skipping the middle step.

Working with their hands tied

The headlines blare: "Pa.'s major school privatization try fails." But read just one or two paragraphs in to discover the roots of the problem:

Edison Schools, a for-profit company hired four years ago to run eight of the city's nine schools, is pulling out in June, partly because it has not gotten paid about $4 million in fees.

The decision followed a tumultuous year that began poorly - with book shortages, teacher shortages, and a riot at the high school that led to 28 arrests - and got steadily worse, with Edison at the mercy of local officials when it came to control over the district's finances and getting the information it needed to do its job.

Among other things, it turned out that the district's poor accounting concealed a $35 million budget deficit. District officials said recently that without an immediate loan to pay teachers, the system would have just $9 left in the bank.

"We have not been able to work well together," Edison spokesman Adam Tucker said. "We knew that we were no longer going to be enough of an active agent for positive change."

Could any system work well when students riot, bad teachers can't be dismissed, and local officials mismanage all the cash?

Edison also found itself in a perpetual three-way power struggle with the board and the central administration. The contract did not allow Edison to hire or fire teachers. The company also did not control the district's finances and had limited ability to shift resources to places that needed them. It was not involved in generating the faulty information that hid the system's budget deficit.

Edison's Tucker said the company struggled just to get accurate information from the district on student enrollment.

Edison's experiences in Chester are a sharp contrast to its tenure in Philadelphia. There, the company began work amid regular protests by hundreds of parents and students opposed to privatization. But after a few years, its reviews have been largely positive. Test scores at several schools have risen. Complaints about its ability to operate in a big city have dwindled.

Getting better graduates?

Methinks a few educrats will wince at Jay Mathews' and Marcus Winters' description of pre-NCLB education as a "pigsty:"

The educational establishment hates the push for standards and accountability just as teenagers hate it when parents barge into their rooms. Both prefer to live in the pigsty unencumbered. Both resent being made to clean it up. No wonder. Change is never easy, and real change is often met with kicking and screaming. That's what we're seeing, just as the standards and accountability movement — embodied in No Child Left Behind — is producing results.

Today's high school graduates are more likely to be academically qualified to attend college than those of a decade ago, before the accountability movement took hold. And we can expect to see more progress if No Child Left Behind expands to high schools...

While the high school graduation rate has hardly budged...[since 1991]...the percentage of students who leave high school college-ready has increased by about 9 percentage points since 1991. Thus, schools are graduating about the same percentage of students, but those who graduate are more likely to have taken the courses required to go on to college.

Students are more college-ready because learning expectations and high school graduation requirements are rising. Responding to reformers' concerns, many states increased the difficulty of their curricula and began requiring students to demonstrate mastery of more difficult material before graduating.

We now know where his brain is located

One enterprising would-be surgeon is described in this article as a "rectal specialist." I agree with the description, as anyone that steals high-stakes test items, only to offer them for relatively low dollars ona public forum like eBay, can be safely said to have his head planted firmly in his...

The American Board of Surgery has revised its testing policies after a doctor who failed a certification exam went back to review his test, wrote down the answers to dozens of questions and then put them up for sale on an Internet auction site. The Philadelphia-based board, which has certified tens of thousands of surgeons nationwide, found out last summer that 86 questions used on its 290-question multiple-choice exam were listed on eBay. Questions used on the exam are rotated from a large pool each year...

Craig Edward Amshel, a rectal specialist out of St. Augustine, Fla., failed the 2002 exam. But, as was the practice at the time, he was later allowed to review his test, alone, at the board's offices in downtown Philadelphia for several hours.

"I was able to take notes very quickly and wrote down about 100 questions with the correct answer," Amshel wrote in an e-mail to a person posing, on the board's behalf, as someone preparing to take the 2004 exam. "Believe me, I was quite thrilled when I took the test last year as some questions were verbatim."

Amshel, who passed the 2003 test, has had his board certification revoked. Last fall, the board sued Amshel in federal court in Philadelphia, alleging copyright infringement and civil theft.

Helpful advice for would-be cheaters: Should you decide to steal items, please note that the value of the items includes the entire cost of developing, proofing, assembling, scoring, and using such items, not only on that particular exam but on future exams. For example, stealing a printed item form that cost over half a million dollars to develop will mean that you could be charged with stealing something worth over half a million dollars. Stealing expensive items and selling them for a paltry couple hundred per item bunch thus reflects an astonishing lack of economic sense to go along with the astonishing lack of intelligence and ethics.

Helpful advice for testing companies: Learn from the ABS's mistake and don't allow examinees to review complete test forms in private - not if you ever plan to use those items again.

Off for the holidays

I'll be busy getting work done today and tomorrow, and then Thursday we head to South Carolina for the Memorial Day weekend. I'll try to log back on this Friday or so, but no bloggage until then.

Lifeblogging from IKEA

Spent Sunday at IKEA picking out one of our engagement gifts - a corner hutch for china.

Dave really enjoyed the carts, on which you can skateboard. I'm picking out furnishing and looked over to see this:

Cabinet, before:

Cabinet, after!

A new system

Today's Non Sequitur:

Dangerous toys

One mother gets the scare of her life:

A 5-year-old Queens boy arrived home from kindergarten with a little something extra in his backpack - a loaded handgun, police said yesterday. Another kindergartner had given the .45-caliber semiautomatic to little Christian Park at Public School 16 in Corona on Wednesday.

"He said, 'Give it back to me tomorrow,'" Christian told the Daily News. "I put it in the bag."

Christian's mother, 29-year-old Eloisa Marquez, assumed the silver gun was a toy when she spotted it in her youngest son's black backpack. "When I touched it, I realized it was real," she said. Marquez immediately called the school and police, who yesterday arrested the father of the boy who brought the weapon to school.

Tesfari Davis, 25, of Corona, was charged with three counts of criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. His son, also named Tesfari Davis, was given an in-school suspension, officials said.

Tesfari Davis, Sr, deserves to be slapped with much worse charges than that (can we make utter stupidity a felony and bar him from having more kids?). Tesfari Davis, Jr., deserves a new father. And Eloisa Marquez deserves kudos for being attentive enough to go through her kid's backpack and smart enough to notify the school and the police.

Comprehensive review at UC-Berkeley

UC-Berkeley says race wasn't a factor in selecting its incoming freshmen class:

Race was not a substantial factor in the admission process for UC Berkeley’s incoming freshman class, said a university-commissioned study released Monday. According to the report by UC Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout, the selection process relied on academic factors such as grades, standardized test scores and high-school course work rather than race.

The university kept in line with its goal to use comprehensive review, which weighs academic achievement and each applicant’s background, in the admissions process, the report said. “In 2004 comprehensive review worked pretty much as designed,” the report said. “Academic achievement outweighed all other factors in the selection process. Applicants’ grades influenced readers the most.”

...Interest in developing a study of the influence of race in admission harks back to 2003, when UC Regent John Moores questioned whether the university’s admissions decisions were being made efficiently enough. Moores published a report in 2003 which found that nearly 400 students with SAT scores below 1,000 were admitted to the campus, while 641 students with nearly perfect scores were rejected. The results set off a whirlwind of debate about the university’s admission practices.

I will admit to being a skeptic about comprehensive review, and I've wondered why much of the coverage didn't ask some straightforward questions about the theories behind the application process. I'm glad to see that academic achievement was heavily weighted here, and I'll be just as interested to see the graduation rates four years' hence.

If the university uses race in its admissions process, it would be in violation of Proposition 209, a 1996 initiative that bans affirmative action in California, Moore added.

That pesky little legality issue doesn't stop some students from complaining about the lack of AA:

...Yvette Felarca, chairperson of BAMN, a pro-affirmative action student group, said she was not surprised that race was not considered in the admission process. “(The UC) doesn’t go far enough to ensure the enrollment of black and Latino students,” Felarca said. “Test scores are not an objective factor. It is a saturated bias.”

It's interesting to see BAMN described here in such a mild way, as BAMN stands for "By Any Means Necessary." If you think that name means the organization allows for violence, there are some who would agree, and there are others who claim the organization is nothing but a student branch of the ultra-left Revolutionary Worker's League.

BAMN hates standardized tests, unsurprisingly, because they hate rich people, and they've duped themselves into believing that SAT items are somehow written so that only rich white teenagers can understand them. What BAMN really hates are comments like the ones I wrote over a year ago, because BAMN isn't about improving educational opportunities for minorities so much as they are about "redistributing the wealth":

The correlation of SES with SAT scores tells us absolutely nothing about whether the SAT is measuring something real. In fact, in our capitalistic society, it would be very odd if SAT didn't correlate with SES. The fact is that kids who come from wealthy homes are more likely to have had access to tutoring and better schools; are more likely to come from homes with educated parents; are more likely to have spent time around books and libraries and enriched environments. Thus, the SAT, which is related to SES, is telling us that kids who grow up around more money learn more, and do better academically as a whole. The faltering K-12 public system is complicit in this, because kids from poor backgrounds often get stuck in the worst schools, with the teachers most willing to lower standards and make excuses.

You will note that nowhere in BAMN's list of What We Stand For is there anything at all about improving the K-12 system so that minority students will actually be better qualified for college, as opposed to admitted by quota or AA.

A little bit o' catblogging

The usual shelter work last night. We haven't had too many kittens this spring, but we do have two unnamed siblings right now whom I've nicknamed Smoke and Charcoal:

I don't use flash when I photograph the kitties, but I still get the most precious annoyed looks when I take their photos:

Most of the common room cats were taking advantage of our outside enclosure last night:

A new type of teachers' union

Will a charter school still be a charter school if its teachers are unionized? The discussion is now underway in the Philadelphia area:

...charter teachers are increasingly opting to form unions because of concerns about pay inequities and job security. This trend already has brought collective bargaining to five of this region's 63 charter schools. And teachers at the Russell Byers Charter School in Center City will vote May 26.

Some charter advocates say union contracts could undermine charter schools' missions. "It will make them more rigid and more bureaucratic," said Terry M. Moe, a Stanford University professor and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in California..."It will make them more like regular public schools and make it more difficult for them to be innovative and flexible," Moe said.

Union officials say contracts are tailored to individual charters' needs and mission statements. And administrators at unionized charters say it's possible to negotiate contracts that do not erode flexibility or jeopardize those missions.

The trend doesn't seem to be spreading.

An ass-inine prank

So, is this a violation of the dress code, or the no-weapons policy?

HOUSTON -- A middle school student in northwest Harris County was punished Wednesday after he was caught trying to moon one of his friends in the school's parking lot. The indecent exposure got Easton Hohensee expelled from Strack Intermediate for one day.

He will also spend the end of the school year in in-school suspension and could spend the first 30 days of the next school year in an alternative school.

You can get "expelled" for just one day? I thought that would just be a "suspension." I think the punishment's a tad overbearing for such a juvenile prank.

A Fark commenter beat me to the title I wanted for this post: "We can all thank Bush for his 'No Child's Behind' education reform policy."

A busy Thursday

No bloggage today; I'll be in OracleAS/Discoverer training all day, followed by time with the kitties at the animal shelter. But if you're just dying to read something I've written, a .pdf of my latest publication - a book review that will appear in the Journal of Educational Measurement - can be found here (click on the .pdf file name after you arrive at the webpage). The following legalese applies:

This PDF file may be posted on the Contributing Author's own website for personal or professional use...

The Contributing Author may make photocopies of, or distribute via electronic mail or fax, his/her own work for the Contributing Author's own teaching and research purposes provided (a) that such copies are not resold and (b) that reference to the original source of publication and the name of the copyright holder is clearly stated on any copies made of the article.

Fiesty high school girls in the news

One girl causes a ruckus merely by walking across the stage at graduation:

A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program. Alysha Cosby's decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute. But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.

"I can't believe something like this is happening in 2005," said her mother, Sheila Cosby. "My daughter has been through a lot and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did"...

The father of Cosby's child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation.

Another girl mouths off against no-drinking rules - and suffers the consequences:

Shawnda Lawson, 18, told The Frederick News-Post earlier this month that she had refused to sign a pledge that she wouldn't drink -- and she told the paper she likes drinking. After the story was published, Lawson said she was told by her principal she was banned from the prom and was an embarrassment to the school.

Her father, Timothy Lawson, told The Associated Press that he doesn't believe Shawnda drinks. And he said the school's principal shouldn't have punished his daughter for something she reportedly said.

And a third girl pisses her boyfriend's mother off something fierce:

For a mother who remembered the senior superlatives in her own high school yearbook hewing to "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Best Smile," the picture came as a surprise to Jacqueline Nobles.

In Boynton Beach High's 2005 yearbook, her son, Robert Richards, is shown with a leash around his neck. Students voting on superlatives — a staple of yearbooks for decades — elected Richards as "Most Whipped" by his girlfriend, using the slang term for a person who is controlled by another in a relationship. The accompanying photo shows Richards, who is black, on a leash held by Melissa Finley, who is white.

Nobles wants the books recalled.

"I know it's supposed to be in fun, but there are people still having trouble with African-Americans' past and this will be offensive," said Nobles, who said the picture reminded her of the poster for the 1970s miniseries Roots, which featured a manacled slave. "This picture, to me, is very distasteful."

You think? Did not one adult leaf through the annual before it went to press? And I don't care if they're smiling, I don't like the photo for, "Most Likely To Be On Jerry Springer," either.

CNN vs. the tests

Recently, CNN aired a special on NCLB and the current status of testing. I didn't get the chance to see it, but Education Gadfly, who did, wasn't impressed:

While brief moments are devoted to explaining how standards and testing can turn around schools, the many teacher diatribes against NCLB and student woes from standardized testing make it pretty clear where America's most trusted name in news stands. The program insinuates that the problems with the Houston school district miracle/myth will be replicated around the country as a result of NCLB. In describing the cheating that occurred, the blame falls not on cheating teachers but on former superintendent Rod Paige and his "reign of terror." In fact, in true [Michael] Moore fashion, the program seems to suggest a Paige/Bush cabal to fake achievement, win the presidential election, and force testing on the unsuspecting nation.

While there are plenty of sad student tales, missing are the stories of those hurt by the old system or helped by the new one. As Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene notes (the program was basically Greene vs. everyone else), "Any system [will] create some sad outcome for somebody," and while just giving everyone diplomas "might help some students, you would hurt many more. And that kind of system is rotten, and it's produced the stagnation that we've had for the last three decades." More disturbing is that this slanted special is a "Classroom Edition" intended to be shown to students. The internet workbook for teachers (see here) asks such questions as, "What do you think are some possible 'unanticipated' social, political, economic or psychological consequences that could occur as a result of high-stakes testing and mandatory retention?" Not that we're telegraphing our punches, mind you.

I clicked on the internet workbook, and let me assure you, the Gadfly isn't exaggerating. There are 10 "Discussion Questions" listed, and three are about the negative impact of testing and mandatory retentions. One is about alternatives to testing, one is about cheating, one is about why this is called a "battle," and one wants the students' "reactions" to claims about dropout rates. There are three questions (# 2, 9, and 10) that I consider reasonably balanced and not provocative, but as I said, I didn't see the program. Given the Gadfly's review, it sounds like CNN was hoping for negative responses to questions such as, "After watching this program, what questions do you have about NCLB and high stakes testing?"

Closing the loopholes in NJ

New Jersey tightens the standards:

New Jersey students who do not pass a standardized test would have a tougher time getting high school diplomas, but would have more chances to take the exam under a plan unveiled Wednesday by the state Education Department.

Education Commissioner William L. Librera is a longtime critic of the process known as the Special Review Assessment, which allows students to graduate without passing the High School Proficiency Assessment. Now, he wants to phase out that path to graduation. "We think the SRA hurts the very kids it's designed to help," Librera said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday. "It erodes the meaning and integrity of the high school diploma."

The special process was introduced in the 1980s, mostly for special education students. But it's become more widely used. Nearly 20 percent of New Jersey high school students follow the alternate path to graduation _ including about half in 31 poor, mostly urban school districts that get extra attention and money from the state.

"More than half." That's quite a loophole. That's a loophole that needs to be closed. The spring '04 HSPA results are summarized here. For a point of reference, the overview of the language arts literacy segments are here, and some sample math items are given here.

Sample OE Item

Every Tuesday, at the Dog Deli, the manager gives away free hot dogs and soda. Every sixth customer gets a free soda, and every eighth customer gets a free hot dog. The Dog Deli served 73 customers last Tuesday.

How many free sodas did the Dog Deli give away last Tuesday?
How many hot dogs were given away?
Did any customers receive both a free hot dog and a free soda?
If so, how many customers?
If a soda sells for 99¢ and a hot dog sells for $1.99, how much did the Dog Deli lose in income by giving away these items?

Justify your answers.

Does anyone believe that one in five NJ students can't be expected to pass an exam of this type before graduation, and thus deserve a loophole so big that, as the state itself admits, "It is nearly impossible...to monitor the conditions in which the SRA is administered"? Justify your answer.

A hair-raising encounter

First schools harass kids who pass up test items, now they're banning certain hairstyles on test days:

The parents of a Norton fifth-grader demanded an apology after a school principal forced the 10-year-old boy to remove cornrow braids he'd put in his hair to copy his favorite Boston Red Sox pitcher. Zach Schwieger arrived at school Monday sporting a hairstyle modeled on that of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, said his stepfather, Robert Alves. Arroyo no longer sports the braids but they were his trademark during last year's season when the Red Sox won the World Series. Principal Janice Pomerleau demanded that he go to the bathroom immediately and remove his braids, saying it would disrupt classmates as they prepared to take a standardized test. "It if wasn't test day, he would have kept it,'' Pomerleau said. Zach's parents said Norton's Henri A. Yelle School has no written policy banning specific hairstyles and that they would take the matter to court unless Pomerleau admits her mistake.

I don't think this is something worth going to court over - but neither do I think a funky hairstyle interferes with concentration. The hairstyle is butt-ugly, as far as I'm concerned, but I have a hard time believing that chaos would reign and test scores would plummet had the boy been allowed to keep his hair like this.

Prayer and a sharp pencil will get you through

The impending LSAT drives students to pray - and write earnest, meandering articles in their college newspapers:

I have developed a better understanding of the LSAT through prepping, but I have always wondered what it had to do with law school. Granted, every test that you take for higher education will give some sort of unbelievable explanation of why it is important. But it was quite odd how the real answer to the question hit me because that answer is found in the word used for all big tests such as this: standardized test. Since every test given out each time is equal for each test taker, the results could be incredibly low but they would still test the overall intelligence of that test group. I never thought that the LSAT, the ACT, or the SAT were really beneficial at all to higher education. But, after prepping for this test, I realized that even if I study for 24 hours a day, this test will bring me back to the reality that studying goes only so far and that these tests were not meant to be studied for...

With this thought in mind, I will continue to prep for the June sixth date and pray that all the hard work will pay off. After all, ambition requires motivation.

Reminds me of the old saying, "As long as there are tests in schools, there will be prayer in schools.'

Tag! You're it!

Tag as a rough-and-ready physical game might be on the wane in schools, but it's flourishing in the blogosphere. The Education Wonks tagged me in the game of "If I could be...."

I get to choose five questions and answer, then tag three other bloggers. The questions:

If I could be a scientist...If I could be a farmer...If I could be a musician...If I could be a doctor...If I could be a painter...If I could be a gardener...If I could be a missionary...If I could be a chef...If I could be an architect...If I could be a linguist...If I could be a psychologist...If I could be a librarian...If I could be an athlete...If I could be a lawyer...If I could be an inn-keeper...If I could be a professor...If I could be a writer...If I could be a llama-rider...If I could be a bonnie pirate...If I could be an astronaut...If I could be a world famous blogger...If I could be a justice on any one court in the world...If I could be married to any current famous political figure...

Very amusing, and since I already consider myself a scientist, a psychologist, a writer, and a librarian (I do have a library, 'tho it's a small one), does that make four of the five? No? Okay then.

If I could be an astronaut...I'd live in a space ship forever. I love small spaces, prepackaged food, and the idea of zero gravity. (The concept of having "no weight" is one that appeals to me, for obvious reasons.) Oh, I'd go outside every once in a while to photograph an amazing star formation or two, but on the whole I'd be happy inside my little rocket ship. Landing on a planet would be nice, but the journey's half the fun.

If I could be an athlete...I'd be an expert in Muy Thai, or Thai kickboxing. I used to take classes in that at the Princeton Academy of Martial Arts , and I loved it. Anyone see, Jackass, the Movie? Remember the scene where one guy gets his arse kicked by a girl in about 90 seconds flat? I really, really want to be that girl.

If I could be a doctor...I'd be a veterinarian, not a physician. Let's face it - the malpractice insurance rates are lower, the lawsuits appear less frequently, and the patients are cuter, even when they're sick. Maybe especially when they're sick. Plus, what other medical office functions well when overrun with critters, to the point where the receptionist has to shoo two cats and an iguana off the appointment book just to schedule your next visit? If a physician's office were filled with stray, loitering humans, just hanging around taking up space, things would look weird and out of control; when a vet's office is stuffed with spare animals, hey, that's a sign of a good cat whisperer. I like that.

If I could be a professor...I'd be tucked away in a tiny little provincial-yet-tony liberal arts college, known as the eccentric, geeky Dr. Swygert who teaches Latin and collects pet cats. I'd be a very tough grader but very fair with my students, and I'd do my damndest to get young men and women interested in this "dead language," as they say. I'd wear thick glasses and sensible shoes, yet I'd date the handsome young basketball coach, just to shake up people's expectations. I'd be the oddball who says politically-incorrect things in faculty meetings and drives the liberal student leaders nuts, but every year I'd find one or two like-minded students who saw the beauty of the language, and recognized it as a link to the ancients.

If I could be a llama-rider...I'd have to lose a lot of weight. I could see this llama being smart enough to say, "You think you're riding on MY back, after all those Hershey's Kisses and Nutter Butters? Amstel Light is not a diet drink when you have 10 at a sitting, toots. I'm laying right here and not budging until you get off and that cute little blonde kid gets back on."

Paying it forward: I'm tagging John Rosenberg, Daryl Cobranchi, and the lovely Anchoress.

Getting a (bad) early start

Talk about starting off life in the wrong way:

So what if typical 3-year-olds are just out of diapers, still take a daily nap and can't tie their shoes? They are plenty old enough to be expelled, the first national study of expulsion rates in prekindergarten programs has found. In fact, preschool children are three times as likely to be expelled as children in kindergarten through 12th grade, according to the new study, by researchers from the Yale Child Study Center.

"No one wants to hear about 3- and 4-year-olds' being expelled from preschool, but it happens rather frequently," said the study's chief author, Walter S. Gilliam.

The descriptive statistics on subgroups will surprise no one, with white girls being the least likely to be expelled, and for-profit preschools being the most likely to toss the troublemakes. And what kinds of trouble could such young kids be making?

The study did not gather information on why the children were expelled. But Dr. Gilliam said a wide range of behavior could lead to expulsion: aggression toward the teacher or other children; actions that violate a zero-tolerance policy, like taking a toy gun to school; or anything that might cause a teacher to worry about injury and liability, like running out of the classroom to the parking lot.

It's a shame that the study didn't collect that information. It would be nice to know how many toddlers get expelled for being aggressive, as opposed to just hyperactive (or having clueless parents that send them in with toy guns).

The Daily News has NYC's local numbers:

One out of every 110 preschoolers is expelled annually from New York classrooms - a rate nearly 18 times higher than the number of older kids booted in grades kindergarten through 12, a study released today found. Hundreds of 3- and 4-year-old pint-size terrors were bounced - from public and private schools alike - for bad behavior ranging from pulling down classmates' pants to slipping water guns into class, according to Yale University researcher Walter Gilliam...

Jean Mandelbaum, director of All Souls preschool on the upper East Side, was shocked to hear so many tots were being expelled. "Every school has a kid that is troubled in some way, but expelling a kid is a harsh thing to do. It's not something we do," said Mandelbaum.

Still, Mandelbaum and other educators said if young students are a danger to their classmates or themselves, they should be removed. "A school is not set up to handle everything," Mandelbaum said. "They are not therapeutic organizations or jails."

(Via Devoted Reader John K.)

Welcome to NYC - here's your test

A NYC middle school follows the letter of the NCLB law, but not without complaint:

The teen was barely off the plane from Colombia when she took one test and then another yesterday at Jamaica's JHS 217. "She just got here," one teacher said to the test proctor as the new student, 14, sat by herself in the library, her pink and white sandals, as well as her blue sparkly nails, as new as her life in Queens. The proctor, Paula Nieto, shrugged. The teen, whose name is being withheld by request, had just taken a 90- minute state test on English proficiency, and after a lunch break, it was time for the eighth-grade math test. "I think it's a little crazy," Nieto said as she handed out the Spanish version of the test. "This girl is scared. Right now, she's nervous."

It may not have been the best welcome, but it was a sign of how test-driven the education system has become nationwide, educators said...

In the old days, principal Jeannette Reed said, the newcomer would have about two weeks to settle down before getting less formal assessments created by 217's teachers to identify her skills and needs. She would have been assigned a "buddy," a Spanish-speaking student mentor, from Colombia, if possible.

And is there any reason that can't still be done? Do we think this student was irreparably harmed by taking a test in her native language? What's so bad about the first day of school being a bit challenging? The system isn't perfect, I agree, but I'm not sure how else to prevent schools from using loopholes to avoid testing low-performing students.

A mixed blessing

A columnist for South Carolina's The Common Voice is happy that SC state standardized tests are ranked as challenging, but frustrated that these results are being trumpeted by opponents of school choice:

In the current edition of Education Next, the Hoover Institute lauds states that embrace rigorous academic standards. South Carolina got “straight A’s” for linking its PACT grading scale to a test known as the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)...The report was co-written by Paul E. Peterson, a Harvard government professor, who praised South Carolina for high standards in testing. He surmised that testing reports can be misleading. “If you have high standards, you are going to have more failing schools. I think South Carolina has high standards"...

Peterson, a school choice advocate, urged readers not to misuse his conclusions in the school choice debate. He specifically stated that he doesn’t want his “article to be read as saying there is no need in South Carolina to have a tuition tax credit.” Enter Mrs. Tenenbaum, South Carolina’s Education Superintendent, who quickly embraced Mr. Peterson’s praise and ignored his plea. She said, “Straight A’s for our rigor demonstrates that South Carolina has risen to the challenge and set demanding proficiency standards.” Then she said the article undermines advocates of a tuition tax credit law that failed to pass the Legislature this year.

I agree with columnist Ralph Bristol that the bad attitude here is, "We are doing better than you thought, so there’s no need for pressure to improve."

Things you didn't know about me

Behold the power of sunscreen - this is how I photograph in daylight, with no flash. (And I will look the same come August, in case you were wondering):

And to continue with a meme that was recently going around the web, here are 10 things you (probably) didn't know about me:

1. Back in the day, my mother was both a prize-winning pianist and a super-fast typist. I've had lessons in neither area, but I type amazingly fast and I bend my fingers up and down and attack the keyboard like I'm playing the piano.
2. Chocolate-covered cherries make me gag.
3. I hate for people to be able to see what books I'm reading, so I always try to hide my book covers when I'm reading in public.
4. I always sit in the back rows of theaters.
5. I cry very easily, especially at emotional movies/TV shows like It's A Wonderful Life or Snoopy, Come Home.
6. I play for blood at Boggle.
7. I will stop the car and jump out to meet someone's puppy on the sidewalk. How most women act around babies, I am around baby animals.
8. I wrecked the first car that I drove four times.
9. My hair has been: red, green, purple, black, white, blonde, yellow, red, orange, and brown. Hey, it's just hair. It'll grow back.
10. I've moved nine times in 13 years. I've actually been through three houses while I've had this one blog. Is it any wonder that I want to stay put for a while?

No grade inflation on this scale: State tests measured against NAEP results

Tough state standardized tests - how does your state measure up?

A newly published study...conducted by Paul E. Peterson and Frederick M. Hess, editors of the quarterly journal Education Next...compared how fourth and eighth graders performed on state tests compared with the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test.

State tests are used to rate school performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Each state creates its own test and sets the passing score. The result is states with easy tests can appear to be doing well, while those with challenging tests can appear to be doing poorly.

"Some states have risen to the challenge and set demanding proficiency levels for their students, while others have used lower standards to inflate reported performance," the report said. "Not only is the disparity confusing, but, perversely enough, the states with the highest expectations often stand accused of having the most schools said to be in need of improvementeven when their students are doing relatively well."

The top five states in the rankings were South Carolina, Maine, Missouri, Wyoming and Massachusetts.

In other words, if a state claims that fewer students are proficient than NAEP scores would indicate, that state gets a higher score for challenging its students; the opposite holds for states whose students do not seem to perform as well on NAEP as on state exams. The full list of 40 states (10 do not have state tests which allowed for NAEP comparisons) is here.

A free pass on spelling errors

Those of you upset by the new SAT's essay section will be apoplectic when you hear that raters of the longer writing task of an exam for British 14-year-olds will no longer count off for spelling errors:

Examiners marking an English test taken by 600,000 14-year-olds have been told not to deduct marks for incorrect spelling on the main writing paper, worth nearly a third of the overall marks. The rule, issued by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, means that pupils could spell every word wrongly in the most significant piece of writing that they are required to do and yet still receive full marks.

Horrible, yet a tad hyperbolic. Spelling ability is not totally unrelated to other areas of writing ability, so it's unlikely that a student who spells three-letter words wrong will gain high marks for sentence structure, organization, and punctuation. The student who does perfectly except for spelling errors will most likely be that brilliant child whose brain remembers words in an, er, creative sense (yes, Devoted Reader J, I'm talking to you!). My guess is that most papers riddled with spelling errors will be riddled with all kinds of other errors as well.

However, one can argue - as the traditionalists are now doing - that it's dangerous not to grade spelling because it sends the message that spelling isn't important:

The revelation of the "spelling free-for-all" in the hour-long paper has angered traditionalists who say that children should be penalised for poor spelling. Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "Spelling and grammar are essential to good English and important in other subjects. The exam watchdog should be ensuring that proper marks are given for these. Not judging spelling on such an important paper sends the message to teacher and pupils that it does not matter, and that is certainly what employers are finding."

Andrew Cunningham, an English teacher at Charterhouse and a former GCSE examiner, agreed that poor spelling was not being tackled. "This downgrading of spelling does not surprise me. All teachers are having to spend time going over these basics, which should have been sorted out at an earlier age."

A new quota system at the U of Oregon

The University of Oregon's Office of Multicultural Academic Support has some blatantly racist and condescending attitudes about those students they purport to serve:

When senior Stephanie Ramey tried to sign up online for Math 243 Calculus for Business and Social Science for spring term she was denied access and informed she would have to contact the class professor. The professor asked her to contact the Office of Multicultural Academic Support about enrolling in his class.

A staff member at the office said she couldn't register for the class because she doesn't identify as a minority, Ramey said..."I guess I was just really surprised and irritated because I thought I had a right to get into the class too. ... I guess I felt a little bit discriminated against," Ramey said. "For a sophomore math class, I shouldn't have to wait just because I'm white."

Ramey attempted to enroll in one of six University classes this term that reserve the first 10 slots in an 18-student class for minority students, while requiring others who want to get into the class to arrive on the morning of the first day of class and meet with an adviser before being allowed to register for the remaining eight slots...Linda Liu, advising coordinator and academic adviser for OMAS, said the classes are meant to offer a safe haven for minority students and give struggling students a chance to work more closely with professors.

Why is the assumption here that minority students who are smart enough to go to college require a "safe haven" before they can perform the same classwork as other students? Will the next step be that such students require job set-asides so that they can be guaranteed of working in a "safe haven" and relieved of the responsibilities of having to work in the same structure as everyone else?

Greg Vincent, vice provost for institutional equity and diversity, said the University offers a smaller class setting for these "gateway courses" for students who could benefit from them. He said the classes also provide a comforting environment that minority students may not get in other classes. The classes aren't based on a quota, and after the initial 10 spots are filled, the classes are open to everyone, he said.

Why should colleges admit students who need comforting environments? Isn't this no different from saying these students cannot do the same work in the same environment as everyone else? I thought the purpose of college was the challenge, not comfort. How do these types of attitudes differ, fundamentally, from the old racist ideas that minorities were not smart enough to attend college?

I'm not being facetious; I just simply don't understand why it's okay for OMAS to lump together all students of certain races as needing special treatment and allowances, when anyone else would be castigated if they said that such students couldn't succeed without extra help.

(Via Fox News.)

Love thy neighbor, but don't hug thy classmate

The zero tolerance brigade outdoes itself, once again:

Public displays of affection are against the rules at Sky View Middle School, and 14-year-old Cazz Altomare found that out the hard way. She got detention earlier this year after hugging her boyfriend in the hallway as he headed to lunch and she went to gym class.

Her mother, Leslee Swanson was infuriated by the punishment - in fact, when she went to pick her daughter up from detention, she gave her a good, hard hug. "I'm trying to understand what's wrong with a hug," said Swanson, 42.

But administrators said such policies are standard-issue at middle schools across the country. "Really, all we're trying to do is create an environment that's focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that," said Dave Haack, the principal of Cascade Middle School, also in Bend. "This is not us being the romance police." Students only end up with detention after repeated warnings, he said.

Just how wrong does childrearing have to go for children to end up as - *gasp*! - serial huggers?

Lifeblogging

Spring has taken its sweet time getting here. Finally, though, 'tis arrived, and both hands are sore from planting astilbe, geraniums, and impatiens.

The impatiens are mixed in with the astilbe, along the side:

The geraniums are out front with what I think are azaleas planted by the previous owners (those of you who have geniune green thumbs are welcome to correct me):

I also finally put some windchimes in the corner; a birdbath has been ordered from Overstock.com and is on its way:

No, it's not a huge garden, but this is about what you get with an 18-foot wide rowhome.

Jostens salutes the proud hghi shcolo graduates

Jostens has always managed to get the rings correct, as far as I know, but their track record on diplomas doesn't look too good:

Poor spelling could prevent hundreds of high school seniors from getting their diplomas next week - but it's not the students' fault. Officials in Lee County in southwest Florida said some diplomas showed up with misspelled names for students and school board members; at least one degree misspelled "chairman." Some diplomas didn't arrive at all.

School district officials said Jostens, a Minneapolis-based company that leads the market for graduation paraphernalia, is to blame.

The students will still graduate - provided they passed the FCAT - but their diplomas will just have to wait until the company can correct the errors.

A painful lesson

A biology teacher pushes the limits:

biology class lesson in Gunnison, Utah involving the dissection of a live dog has outraged some parents and students, according to a report. "I thought that it would be just really a good experience if they could see the digestive system in the living animal," Biology teacher Doug Bierregaard said. Biology teacher Doug Bjerregaard, who is a substitute teacher at Gunnison Valley High School, wanted his students to see how the digestive system of a dog worked.

Bjerregaard made arrangements for his students to be a part of a dissection of a dog that was still alive. The dog was still alive, but the teacher said it was sedated before the dissection began.

I disagree with the students who claim there is nothing to be learned from this - but that doesn't necessarily make it humane, or worth doing, or even acceptable.

(Side note: Does anyone but me see the sick humor in the fact that the sidebar item, "WEEK'S MOST POPULAR" photos, is entitled, "Bizarre Items Found In Kids' Stomachs"? It's really hard to believe that's a coincidence.)

Via Education Wonks.

Mistreating kids and blaming the WASL

School administrators suspend a fourth-grader who balks at a WASL item:

Tyler Stoken is 9 years old and his mother says he's good at taking tests. But when it came to the recent Washington Assessment of Student Learning, one question stumped him. He was asked to write a short essay about a make-believe situation and his principal.

Tyler paraphrases the question saying, "You look out one day at school and see your principal flying by a window. In several paragraphs write what happens next." He's asked, "So why didn't you answer that question?" He says, "I couldn't think of what to write the essay without making fun of the principal."

He refu