Tick, tick, tick, tick.  I’m in a room proctoring the Math MCAS for the 10th graders.  The kids are well behaved, but you can see confusion on their faces.  Some of these students know already that they’ll be taking a re-take come November of next year.  Our most academically fragile students, pulled out of classes for more tests.  How does that make sense?  Others will have no problem getting near that 260 that they can get.  They’ll wonder why they’re in school with such knuckle heads.  This is not solving anything.

If our classwork is rigorously designed, and we’re meeting the standards, why the testing?  It kills staff morale; decimates student morale; APs and principals get money based on the scores.  This is no way to run a school system.

In other news, the theory is that I’ll know what classes I’m teaching by day 159.  My boss said to stop by and Friday and he can tell me.  I’m anxious.  I might stop by earlier.  It feels like some weird set up for failure.  I’ve had a lot of anxiety dreams about classes, and I think I know what I’m going to wind up teaching.  I suppose I could be wrong, but I don’t know.  My tarot cards seem to be saying that I’ll be doing the same thing I expect.