What testing is really about

So in this cartoon Hector is given a multiple choice test and is instructed not to choose the correct answer. And no Sally you may not write an essay because essays are hard to grade and quantify, just like teaching. Just like learning. Just like life. It is said life can only be understood in reverse, but has to be lived going forward. 

Don Quixote Battles the Obama's Race To The Top

Education is being assaulted on all sides theses days. Even Obama got in on the action by creating Race To The Top. Its the latest in creating a way to ram through education reform based on yet another unproven method that puts schools at further risk for implementing strategies that will cause student performance to tank. It's another example of the conservative agenda meant to destroy public schools. Why Obama is helping out on this is a complete mystery.

Pentagoon Logic 101

This time Hector and Sally are talking about the money spent on the wars and how it might be better spent on infrastructure in the United States. Imagine, 1 trillion dollars spent on schools in America instead of on wars in foreign countries. Now go out there and run that bake sale to raise money for the stupid board you need in your classroom.

Hick heaves school budget over cliff

Hickenlooper has decided to throw education over the budgetary cliff. He proposed this radical budget before the current state revenue numbers came in. He has not adjusted his budget to reflect that the revenue came in not as bad a forecast. Instead he has suggested that those numbers reflect one time money. I'm not sure I can believe his projections based on his decision to jump the gun on those numbers in the first place and propose such a radical budget.

Left Behind

I hear that Obama wants to review NCLB. I hope it changes for the better. The incessant testing, tying testing to school closure, and teacher salaries has to stop. The curriculum has been narrowed to the point that students learn to take a test. Teachers teach to the test to preserve their jobs and pay. Currently NCLB mandates that school scores have to improve every year to the point that all students are proficient or face closure and conversion into charter schools. No money was ever appropriated by congress to attain this goal. This all has to be done by 2014. Get ready for the end of public education.

Present and Future

Hector contemplates his situation as a teacher of the future. Things haven't changed from present day, they have become worse. Meanwhile young Hector wants to become a teacher, he is full of enthusiasm, wish him luck.

Budget cuts looming

Hickenlooper is elected as Governor. The coming budget woes are on the horizon. Tax revenues are down, Amendment 23 ends in 2011. Get ready Hector and Sally, changes are coming.