Speaking of Zach, he recently passed the WASL - the Washington Assessment of Student Learning - with flying colors, which will allow him to graduate. Of course, he still has to finish high school and all, but the WASL is a requirement.

I am NOT a fan of the WASL or other standardized testing, for many reasons. I am so much against it that I have considered, in years past when it wasn’t serving as his exit exam, pulling him from the classroom during testing week and keeping him at home as a form of grass-roots protest.

I think that standardized testing dumbs down our educational system as teachers focus on teaching to the test, and then sacrifices further valuable instructional days to the lengthy testing process.

I think that the ability to perform on a single, high-stakes test is only one small measure of a young adult’s educational competency, and to require it as a mandatory criterium for graduation is grossly inappropriate.

I think that rating our schools’ and teachers’ performance on our students’ test scores is also unfair. Why should our teachers be penalized because some of our highest risk kids come from a culture and living environment that doesn’t support any sort of school achievement, much less test performance?

I think that these particular tests are poorly designed, written in a biased and unclear manner, and scored inconsistently by unevenly qualified staff.

Most importantly, as a management professional, I am well aware that you cannot test quality into a process! By the time you find out you’ve failed, it’s too late. Quality begins at the beginning - you design quality in - as parents, as teachers - and later, as self-aware students.

And, one last question - if Zach, and some significant percentage of the 10th graders of Washington state, are able to pass the WASL in 10th grade, what does that say for the value of 1) 11th and 12th grade education, or 2) the value of the exam in evaluating a K-12 education?

I’m still pleased that Zach passed, but I’ll be more congratulatory when he takes college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT - I think those tests are a little more worth the investment of time and effort.

Apparently country-western star Gretchen Wilson has finally completed her GED at 34 years of age.

Wilson has made a name for herself as an up-and-coming country singer/songwriter, winning numerous awards in the last five years - and has a reputation for eschewing the glamor-girl track in favor of a tomboyish, rabble-rousing redneck image. Her most widely known song is “Redneck Woman”:

Well, you might think I’m trashy, a little too hardcore
But in my neck of the woods I’m just the girl next door
I’m a redneck woman
I ain’t no high class broad
I’m just a product of my raising
I say, ‘hey y’all’ and ‘yee-haw’
And I keep my Christmas lights on
On my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Tanya Tucker song
So here’s to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big ‘hell yeah’ from the redneck girls like me

So, here she is, getting lots of press for her shiny new GED. Perhaps I’m just an elitist snob, but I never considered a high school diploma to be a big achievement, just a milestone on the way for truly preparing myself for life. I’ve also considered a GED to be a less-desirable alternative to actually sticking it out for a diploma. On the other hand, a bachelor’s degree? Worth celebrating. A master’s or PhD? Definitely an achievement - that I haven’t yet earned.

It’s sad that there are still parts of our fairly progressive, well-educated nation where people shrug their shoulders and drop out of school years before finishing. I understand family problems, economic challenges, even academic problems. There are those who struggle with all of those issues and still earn a high school diploma, even go on to college. And there are those who want for very little and still drop out.

Why? Is it a values issue? A character deficiency? A social problem? Are we in America continuing to fail part of the next generation?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that Wilson earned her GED. And I’m always encouraged by those who earn their success with substance, rather than style - and she seems to belong to that club.

Still and all, I think that the amount of press - carefully worded, non-judgmental press - that she is getting for this relatively minor achievement does our youth a disservice. It trivializes the importance of staying in school, of making a GED a priority, of pursuing the basic educational competency required to function in today’s world.

Send out another press release when she earns a degree, starts a charitable foundation or adopts some worthy cause. I’ll applaud then.

Is censorship ever justifiable?

I suppose the answer to that question depends on your perspective, whether you’re the censorer or the censoree.

My son is writing a paper on censorship - Merriam Webster defines it: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable . We also talked about what it is not – media bias, religious freedom, children’s rights, copyright or criminal law issues. Janiece had a good post on the subject today, too.

Tonight, at the dinner table we talked about some fairly major examples of controversial, often-criticized censorship.

• The banning of books from our curriculum, school & public libraries.
• China’s harsh censorship and prohibition of external information, including the Internet, print, video and audio media.
• The Islamic world’s prohibition of media, styles, and cultural influences that are considered to be Western.
• The MPAA, PMRC and ESR ratings and restrictions on movie, record and game content.
• The FCC’s restrictions and penalties on tv and radio content deemed obscene or objectionable.
• Private or public funding tied to restrictions on public information, for example, sex education in the schools.

We also discussed whether there were any instances where censorship was perhaps appropriate and justifiable in western culture. The only examples I could think of were:

• The revelation of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity by White House staffer Lewis Libby.
• Restrictions and penalties for volatile or harassing speech in the workplace.
• Restrictions, controls and removal of speech in a privately-owned forum. See my blog comment terms and conditions for an example.

Can you think of examples of justifiable or acceptable censorship in today’s society? No extra points for actually requiring me to apply censorship according to above terms and conditions.

I flew in late last night, and this morning I took the elder smug son to college to register for classes for the first time. He didn’t need me for much – just to write the check at the end of it all. (Thank you, Alaska state dividend and a decade-long college savings plan).

I’m really proud of him for making it to this step! Even if it does make me feel old.

This afternoon, the younger smug son is working on rebuilding a PC for gaming with a friend and, when successful, he’ll recover the tax files that were saved on the hard drive last spring. He’s reaching the point where he knows more than me about computers and applications, and I’m pretty geeky.

I’m also proud of him for taking on such a project. Even if it does make me feel old.

I think I’m going to take some aspirin and then indulge in a nap.

I, and many parents I know, am tremendously annoyed with their school district’s excess of in-service, no-school days. The district euphemistically calls them “Learning Improvement Days”. My current level of irritation has been triggered by January’s excess of them: winter break, plus MLK and an in-service day, plus an end of semester in-service day. My son has nearly been out of school as much as he’s been in it!

I went through and counted. Not including winter and spring break, our school district has:

• 7 Learning Improvement Days
• 6 Half-days
• 3 “Most employees don’t get the day off” holidays

That’s 13 days in 9 months of school! Coincidentally, that’s exactly what my employer gives entry level employees in combined paid time off and floating holidays.

I realize that schools do not exist to provide childcare; their purpose is education. Nonetheless, we families structure our lives around the school year, and schedule disruption is problematic. I’m fortunate; my older teens require little supervision so it doesn’t much affect my professional life. Parents of younger children, though, can end up burning all their paid time off just to make up for the district’s lackadaisical commitment to actually providing classroom education.

I actually taught for a year and a half, as a long-term sub for Department of Defense schools in the UK, so I can see this from a teacher’s perspective too. Many of my colleagues and I found the in-service days to be a complete waste of time; we’d show up late, for the minimum required time, and duck out early. The only days that were useful were parent teacher conferences and the quarterly grading/prep day. In today’s age of electronic grade reporting, I’m not sure why a grade compilation day is necessary, the information is already in the system.

So, my question is, why do districts get away with this, especially with today’s pressure to perform well on standardized tests (another subject for another rant)? Is it a concession to the teachers’ union? Is it simply an established institution that’s become bloated over time? I don’t recall more than a couple of in-service days a year when I was in school.

It certainly indicates no respect for the students or families attending schools in the district, nor a commitment to consistent classroom instruction.

What it does do is instill a sense of reciprocal apathy. If the school is going to treat classroom days so cavalierly, then I as a parent can treat my son’s school schedule with equal disregard. The easiest time for him to get into the dentist is during the school day? No problem. We can’t get a decently-priced flight back from our family vacation until a couple days after break? Oh, well, we can live with that. (I do realize two wrongs don’t make a right.)

Given the institutional indifference, it’s no wonder our children’s performance is falling behind that of Asian and European nations.