Agghhh, I'm greatful to be graduation from highschool this spring when I am. Minnesota is going to implement ANOTHER one of those dreadfully time consuming yet painstakingly easy standardized tests. During my highschool career I took a reading and math standardized test in 8th grade, writing in 10th grade, and math in 11th grade. Now, students have to take multiple tests a year from 7th-12th. I believe it might have something to do with Bush's poorly done "No child left behind" garbage, though I don't know how it has influenced other states. These tests are supposedly to be used to test performance of the students and gauge the effectiveness of the teaching staff in the process, from which major desicions in funding are based off. If you ask me, the schools with lower scores should be getting extra money to strengthen their program, but the way it is set up the strong will only get stronger, and the weak weaker. The kicker is that students' grades are affected by these tests because the results are not received until mid-June. A commonplace thought of many are: "Hmmm, so they want me to take this three-hour test and it's not going to benefit or harm me directly since I'm going to be out of this school soon, screw it, I'm just filling in random answers." Bush's decision is going to impact my school in a very negative manner. Due to his new standards, it is now mandatory for EVERY student to take a probability and stat. math course, the third highest my school offers. Keep in mind that some 40% of the students don't take math classes beyond 9th grade Algebra or 10th grade Geometry. This change will force my math teacher to drop his AP Calculus college credit course for another prob and stat class to attempt to teach 30 more deadbeat kids something they don't give a damn about.
Also, I have two cousins in New York who were bragging about how tough their schools are. I don't know how truthful they were being because they're naturally driven by a little bit of ego. Dmitri may be right, because I haven't read any statistics lately about education among the states.
__________________
First of all, Papa Smurf didn\'t create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel\'s evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village, but the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn\'t happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don\'t even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That\'s what\'s so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. What\'s the point of living if you don\'t have a ****?
|