Re: Chico hasn't got all the answers; NYS doesn't have all the right questions, either...

[Rick Parkany <rparkany@BORG.COM>]

Well, Folks, now that these sorts of performance indicators of lax oversight and
administrative accountability are becoming _de rigueur_ (see article below); how
do we synthesize a position and how do we consolidate the public's disgust for
hypocrisy and administration by euphemism in these High stakes Times? isn't it
time we put these power drunk administrators and overseers *On the Wagon*?!!

For ALL the standardized tests I've taken in my life--there wasn't ONE test that
I hadn't dickered and bickered w/my task master test makers at how first one,
and then another question came to me that I knew better how to ask. (I remember
starting to anxiously knaw on my knuckles during timed tests in 2nd grade over
the Iowa Tests--my Kindergartner-turned-First-Grader, Rachael Margaret, asked me
during dinner this year the day of her graduation, *Is the First Grade CAT
harder than the Kindergartner's?*) Of course, I've long since learned how to
play the game and did too well to sacrifice the advantage I had just in order to
make a point (so I ended up forming a career around the issue, instead--check
out my WEBpage)--so I just filled in the bubbles that THEY wanted in order to
get the good scores, but, then again, I never met THEM, so the game was always
w/my reading avitar--something I did to pass the time. I'm so proud of the youth
and families who are breaking herd and opting out of these rituals--an
inspiration, indeed, for us to continue the Blows Against the Empire in the ways
we know we are able to do at this point in our political development as a family
unit...

[BTW:     Rachael is OK, performs accoring to script well, and does well
testing, thereby. Theresa & I know just how to keep her in balance w/o betraying
our disgust for the system--after having visited her new classroom earlier in
that same day, she immediately started writing letters and making gifts to her
next 1st grade teacher that same evening that has turned into a veritable care
package and cargo-cult offering that we are going to have to ship to her via
parcel post--she justy made two more cards last night--this Kid LOVES school!]

But, I suppose I have spent my whole career helping those who DIDN'T or couldn't
do so well to do better--I started tutoring my peers in the second grade,
too--when I was sent to speach class to learn to say my *R*s, I went home and
taught my younger siblings so to do who had begun to mimick me in the same ways
my speach teacher taught me---consequently, they didn't have to suffer the
humiliation of being pulled out w/the learning disabled--a stigma I suffered,
accordingly for several years, thereafter, all my classmates knowing full well
that I was deficient and mocking me as a *R'ARD*. I never could suffer a Bully,
it seems, always a finger in the eye to the Bad BoiZ and a punch to my face for
so doing--so there ya go for my motivation in these issues...    ;-} rap.

[BN:    If you need this article for your case in ChiTown, George, pick it up
now, as there is no morgue or bone pile for the Utica, NY O-D...}

 Uticaod.com :
http://www.uticaod.com/news/local2.htm
Regents questions with wrong answers? That's correct

                  By MEGAN ALLEN
                  Observer-Dispatch

                  Students stumped by four questions on June Regents
                  exams can?t be blamed for not studying enough.

                  It turns out the U.S. history and government, biology
                  and earth science Regents exams included mistakes,
                  according to the Associated Press.
                  The exams each included one or two multiple-choice
                  questions with no or two correct answers, the AP
                  reported.

                  Typically, a mistake is discovered on one of the
                  Regents exams each year, state Education Department
                  Spokesman Bill Hirschen said.

                  ?So it?s very, very rare, but it does happen,? he said,
                  noting the education department creates more than 80
                  Regents exams every year.
                  Hirschen said school officials are notified immedately of
                  any corrections, so that
                  students can be given credit for the questions.

                  ?(It) is the first time it has ever happened in my teaching
                  career,? said Whitesboro U.S. History and Government
                  Teacher Jill Breckel. The question, which had no correct
                  answer, was based on part of Article 1 of the U.S.
                  Constitution, known as the elastic clause.

                  She said all Whitesboro juniors took the exam and no one
                  spoke out about the question. But she said the question is
                  open to interpretation and some of the answers could be
                  argued.

                  The elastic clause allows Congress to make any laws
                  necessary to execute its powers, which include establishing
                  an army and navy. It serves to give the federal government
                  more power and flexibility, Breckel said.

                  Breckel said the history correction did not have a huge
                  impact on her students? grades, though she said one
                  student?s 99 percent grade was raised to 100 percent.

"Allen Flanigan." wrote:

> "We may not have all the answers, but at least we are trying."
>
> A captain concerned about his ship taking on water sent a midshipman below
> to see about the situation.  Several hours later, noticing his ship listing
> even more, he went below to find the midshipman purposefully boring holes in
> the hull with a brace-and-bit.  The captain glared at the midshipman,
> pointed to the water gushing through the numerous holes he had drilled, and
> roared, "IS THAT ANY WAY TO GET WATER OUT OF THE SHIP?", to which the
> midshipman replied, "I may not have all the answers, but at least I'm
> trying!"
>
> Allen Flanigan
>

--
"Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust!
Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit',
auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany
Prometheus Educational Services - http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/
Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA