Why the Arts Matter

"In a country built upon innovation, where we pride ourselves on pushing the next wave of global development, why are we so uninterested in creativity? Why don’t we fight tooth and nail to keep the great bastions of our history of our creativity alive and funding and staffed to the hilt? We are so cavalier with culture, so flippant about art and art education, I fear that it will slip through the sieve of time without our noticing its loss till it’s too late."

Testing in Texas

"Texas paid $90,665,041 to a company called Pearson on standardized student assessment for the 2010-2011 school year alone. The same site reported when the Texas Education Agency renewed its contract with Pearson for 2010-2015 to develop the new STAAR test, it was to the tune of $468,392,617, Duncan said."

I think I might move to Austin and see if I can work for Pearson. I could probably figure out a way to split $90 million dollars. And $468 million is only $93 million per year. Wait, that's an increase. Maybe they forgot to check the Greensheet.

I guess that state acted preemptively to get that figure locked in, right? Good on them for going for the bargain. I bet they brought in their best lawyers to negotiate that contract.

I bring this up because we're doing field testing for the new test at my school. Which is all online. But we don't really have enough computers for it. And, they're kicking me out of my room to put computers in it for testing.

Next year, the new state test will occur in the same two week period as AP testing. So apparently the TEA called the College Board and asked them to change the dates of AP testing. I think I cried when one of the administrators told me that. I would have LOVED to have heard that conversation.

Surprise! There is such a thing as:

Rabbit showjumping.
You're welcome.