ITBS

This week we began giving the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (aka ITBS). This high stakes tests gets us all in a tizzy! We want our kids to do well and we try our best to make it a good experience for all those involved. But it's hard! Kids are absent and leaving in the middle of the day. Ahh! No Child Left Behind can't expire soon enough!!! 100% of students proficient is not a possiblity... the scores are designed to fit a bell-curve, which means THERE IS NOT POSSIBLE WAY FOR EVERYONE TO BE PROFICIENT... by design a bell-curve has 50% below and 50% above.... sigh, when will the legislature make laws that are actually workable??? Instead they throw more money at things (printing more money, doesn't really mean there is more money, but that's a different subject altogether) and hope for the best... sigh, if I could just make people do what I say........