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Dave Barry Feels My Pain
David of Mac
Elite RangerCa
in Zocalo v2.0
As the day draws nigh for my return to school to begin my classes, humor columnist [url=http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12297791.htm]Dave Barry[/url] has wrote on the reasons why that day is drawing nigh at this time of year.
[quote][b]School on Aug. 8? Are they insane?[/b]
BY DAVE BARRY
[email]dbarry@herald.com[/email]
Here's a multiple-choice test:
When should the school year start?
A. Sometime around Sept. 1, when most of the United States of America has started school for many decades.
B. On Aug. 8 -- also known as ''smack dab in the middle of summer'' -- when the average Florida classroom is roughly the same temperature as a pizza oven.
If you answered ''A,'' you are correct. If you answered ''B,'' you are an official of Miami-Dade or Broward public schools. These officials have decided that our children need to start school on Monday, when children from normal places are vacationing with their families, or attending summer camp, or lying on the sofa picking their noses and playing video games, which is what God clearly intended early August to be used for.
Among the children who will be trudging into Miami-Dade schools on Monday is my 5-year-old daughter, who enters kindergarten this year. When my wife told me the date our daughter would start school, my fifth question was: ``Why?''
(My first four questions, in order, were: ''Aug. 8?'' ''Did you say Aug. 8?'' ''You mean, like, the eighth day of AUGUST?'' ``Are they INSANE??'')
I found out that the reason for the extremely early start of the school year is -- as you veteran parents already know -- the FCATs. FCAT is an acronym standing for ``(Very bad word) Comprehensive Assessment Test.''
These are standardized tests that are administered to all public-school students in Florida to confirm the sneaking suspicion among us older people that these kids today are just not as sharp as we were, dadgummit.
The FCATs have come to dominate public education in Florida. At one time, the purpose of the public schools, at least theoretically, was to educate children; now it is to produce higher FCAT scores, by whatever means necessary. If school officials believed that ingesting lizard meat improved FCAT performance, the cafeterias would be serving gecko nuggets.
So what they've been doing is starting school earlier and earlier, to give teachers more time to drill the kids for the FCATs, which are given in February and March.
Last year, school started in the third week in August; this year it's the second week. If this keeps up it's only a matter of time before we're starting the school year around Memorial Day, which means parents will have to go on their family vacations without taking their actual families, keeping in touch with their children by postcard. (''Dear Dylan -- Disney World is great! Wish you were here! How do you like second grade?'') Yes, it would pretty much destroy childhood. But think of the FCAT scores!
Some other ways we might improve our FCAT performance are:
1. Expel students who are expected to do poorly on the FCATs. The school could send the parents of these students a letter that said: ``We're sorry, but we do not believe your child is capable of producing the kind of FCAT scores that we need to maintain our average here at Coral Snail Elementary.''
2. Import students to Florida from places that tend to produce high standardized-test scores, such as Japan.
3. Cheat. Hey, this is Miami-Dade County! If we can't cheat, what's the point of living here?
4. Instead of starting the school year insanely early, give the tests later.
Ha ha! I'm just kidding with that last one, of course. What a crazy idea! But I sure wish we could find a way to avoid the gradual elimination of our children's summers. I suspect many of you parents out there feel the same way.
In fact, that gives me an idea: Why don't we all write letters to our school board members telling them how we feel? We could collect all these letters and put them in a big box, and then, on the day of the next school board meeting, we could throw the box into a Dumpster. Because I seriously doubt that the school board cares what we parents think about this; if it did, it would never have decided to send our kids back to school on Aug. 8.
No, probably all we can do is shut up, pay our taxes and take our kids to school on whatever day works best for FCAT purposes. On Aug. 8, I'll be dropping my daughter off, with her little lunchbox in her little hand. We prefer to pack her lunch; she's allergic to gecko.[/quote]
[quote][b]School on Aug. 8? Are they insane?[/b]
BY DAVE BARRY
[email]dbarry@herald.com[/email]
Here's a multiple-choice test:
When should the school year start?
A. Sometime around Sept. 1, when most of the United States of America has started school for many decades.
B. On Aug. 8 -- also known as ''smack dab in the middle of summer'' -- when the average Florida classroom is roughly the same temperature as a pizza oven.
If you answered ''A,'' you are correct. If you answered ''B,'' you are an official of Miami-Dade or Broward public schools. These officials have decided that our children need to start school on Monday, when children from normal places are vacationing with their families, or attending summer camp, or lying on the sofa picking their noses and playing video games, which is what God clearly intended early August to be used for.
Among the children who will be trudging into Miami-Dade schools on Monday is my 5-year-old daughter, who enters kindergarten this year. When my wife told me the date our daughter would start school, my fifth question was: ``Why?''
(My first four questions, in order, were: ''Aug. 8?'' ''Did you say Aug. 8?'' ''You mean, like, the eighth day of AUGUST?'' ``Are they INSANE??'')
I found out that the reason for the extremely early start of the school year is -- as you veteran parents already know -- the FCATs. FCAT is an acronym standing for ``(Very bad word) Comprehensive Assessment Test.''
These are standardized tests that are administered to all public-school students in Florida to confirm the sneaking suspicion among us older people that these kids today are just not as sharp as we were, dadgummit.
The FCATs have come to dominate public education in Florida. At one time, the purpose of the public schools, at least theoretically, was to educate children; now it is to produce higher FCAT scores, by whatever means necessary. If school officials believed that ingesting lizard meat improved FCAT performance, the cafeterias would be serving gecko nuggets.
So what they've been doing is starting school earlier and earlier, to give teachers more time to drill the kids for the FCATs, which are given in February and March.
Last year, school started in the third week in August; this year it's the second week. If this keeps up it's only a matter of time before we're starting the school year around Memorial Day, which means parents will have to go on their family vacations without taking their actual families, keeping in touch with their children by postcard. (''Dear Dylan -- Disney World is great! Wish you were here! How do you like second grade?'') Yes, it would pretty much destroy childhood. But think of the FCAT scores!
Some other ways we might improve our FCAT performance are:
1. Expel students who are expected to do poorly on the FCATs. The school could send the parents of these students a letter that said: ``We're sorry, but we do not believe your child is capable of producing the kind of FCAT scores that we need to maintain our average here at Coral Snail Elementary.''
2. Import students to Florida from places that tend to produce high standardized-test scores, such as Japan.
3. Cheat. Hey, this is Miami-Dade County! If we can't cheat, what's the point of living here?
4. Instead of starting the school year insanely early, give the tests later.
Ha ha! I'm just kidding with that last one, of course. What a crazy idea! But I sure wish we could find a way to avoid the gradual elimination of our children's summers. I suspect many of you parents out there feel the same way.
In fact, that gives me an idea: Why don't we all write letters to our school board members telling them how we feel? We could collect all these letters and put them in a big box, and then, on the day of the next school board meeting, we could throw the box into a Dumpster. Because I seriously doubt that the school board cares what we parents think about this; if it did, it would never have decided to send our kids back to school on Aug. 8.
No, probably all we can do is shut up, pay our taxes and take our kids to school on whatever day works best for FCAT purposes. On Aug. 8, I'll be dropping my daughter off, with her little lunchbox in her little hand. We prefer to pack her lunch; she's allergic to gecko.[/quote]
Comments
quote th article?
no doubt funny, but bugmenot has failed to help...
[Edit]Technically I'm going to a public college because the MCAS and many other factors led me to the decision that formalized education is pretty much crap, and that I therefore decided that "knowledge" is more important than "good grades." But I much prefer blaming the state (and the country).
(Thanks. ;) :D)
I have an even better Idea than Dave Barry has...
rather then move the FCAT back a few weeks. [i]WHY NOT GET RID OF IT ALLTOGETHER[/i]
In fact, why not ABOLISH ALL STANDARDIZED TESTING. It's frakking useless anyway. Teachers hate it, students hate it...golly, everyone hates it!
Bah...one more reason I hate public schools...
[B]what is this "subscribe" you refer to?
(Thanks. ;) :D)
[/B][/QUOTE]
Oh, it's a wonderful system. My family gives them money, and they throw a newspaper at my house every day and let me look at their website. Soon all the publications will be trying it, I wager. ;)
And, oh, I can't wait until this country's love affair with the standardized test comes to an end, as the education system wakes up next to testing in bed one morning and gets a look at its hideous face in good lighting without the enhancement of a drunken haze.
There's one test required in the middle years of the Dade country cirriculumn (I believe it's manditory twice every year in the affected grades, and can be bumped up to four times a year at the principal's discresion) called the Scholastic Reading Inventory. It's about a hundred questions in this form.[quote]Johnny licked his ice-cream cone. He would leave home, soon, and he wanted to enjoy his last ice-cream. It wasn't working. Johnny feels ______
A: melancholy
B: sad
C: wistful
D: flatulent[/quote]
But that's not the best part. The "Scholastic" in the name refers to the test's maker, a publisher of children's books. Each passage is taken from one of their books, and packaged along with the test score is a list of Scholastic books within each score range, so the students can find which (of their) books is at the student's score range.
Of course, if one does not do well on the test, one is sent to a remideal reading class, so it's a little less harmless then just a little product-placement that sucks up a class period.
So, there's my funny test story. ;)
I'm not sure what the big deal about early school starts is...first I grew up in a school district that always started in the middle of August, which was a throw-back to the days when more of the student base grew up on farms and needed to be out early in the spring for planting.
Second, the school district in which my wife and I currently reside actually goes year-round with regular 2-3 week breaks (up to the 7th grade). Teachers generally like it since its easier to get students back into swing after breaks, and much less review is needed. Parents like it since they do not have to rearrange their whole schedule in the summer and the kids do pretty well since they actually get off at more regular intervals.
Jake
Schools want students to do well on the tests not because it recognizes the school as a good education facility but because the higher the average the more money they recieve for additional funding. Schools that dont score as high get less money.
So, School A is already a good school, gets good TACS scores, gets more money and hopefully becomes a better school. But School B is a shithole in downtown Dallas that did poorly on test scores and gets shafted out of more money and probably recieves less money than they did last year???
No child left behind huh? How about no right wing conservative white child left behind. Fuck the poor folks that live in the inner cities, they usually vote democrat anyway.
[B]So, School A is already a good school, gets good TACS scores, gets more money and hopefully becomes a better school. But School B is a shithole in downtown Dallas that did poorly on test scores and gets shafted out of more money and probably recieves less money than they did last year???
No child left behind huh? How about no right wing conservative white child left behind. Fuck the poor folks that live in the inner cities, they usually vote democrat anyway. [/B][/QUOTE]
That's another thing that pissed me off. My school used to clearly fudge the numbers to make itself look better and therefore receive more money and preserve its status as "one of the bestest edukashonal skools in New York." It really disgusted me, because I got to ask the Superintendent about it and he *admitted* that it happened.
Such a backwards system...
[B]Yeap, down in Texas we have the TACS tests. All of these standarzied tests are stupid anyways.
Schools want students to do well on the tests not because it recognizes the school as a good education facility but because the higher the average the more money they recieve for additional funding. Schools that dont score as high get less money.
So, School A is already a good school, gets good TACS scores, gets more money and hopefully becomes a better school. But School B is a shithole in downtown Dallas that did poorly on test scores and gets shafted out of more money and probably recieves less money than they did last year???
No child left behind huh? How about no right wing conservative white child left behind. Fuck the poor folks that live in the inner cities, they usually vote democrat anyway. [/B][/QUOTE]
How much money a school has is definitely not a measure of the quality of education. For example, the St. Louis city school district spends about 11,330 per student per year and has a graduation rate of 90% while Francis Howell, a suburban St. Louis district with a similar student population spent an average of 3,300 per student and had a graduation rate of 98%. Now granted St. Louis city is a larger district and has to deal with issues like bussing and aging buildings, but in the end it has to do with leadership. The St. Louis school board is constant storm of infight, bickering and acqusations of wrong-doing, rarely do you hear them talk about students.
I really hate the American public school system.