The Window Has Reopened. Prepare Your Bribes.

A neighborhood kid, on a short break from dodgeball in our front yard, complained that he didn't get a ticket after the PARCC test yesterday. "I tried my hardest," he complained, "and that's what you have to do, and take your time. Then I can trade my ticket for a Snickers. But they never gave me one."

At this point I joked with my son, very inappropriately, that I'd buy him 2 Snickers if he told his teacher the test is bullshit. They'll let anyone be a parent.

But this is what I'm thinking...my kid doesn't get a Snickers because he isn't taking the tests. We've refused for many reasons. They are academically inappropriate, far too lengthy, intrusive, and offer students and teachers nothing meaningful except undue stress or perhaps an ulcer.

What does a candy bar have to do with the pursuit of an education anyway? Unless these tests have very little to do with education.

I sat on a panel a week ago, the day before the window reopened, and listened to a state legislator and a state school board member essentially advise parents to refuse the tests. They were of the mindset that it would take a "storm" to motivate change. And so a parent uprising, an opt-out movement (but you better say refuse), a teacher revolt, and onward...

In the meantime the tests continue, and I'm angry that my friend didn't get his ticket. He took your test. He's never going to see any detailed results. Why the hell else was he taking the test?

I have to go. I need to go to the store for a Snickers. I have to write my State Representative.