Between a Rock and A Hard Place.

I know this is Musical Monday...but I couldn't think of a good musical number...maybe "God, I Hope I Get It" from A Chorus Line.  Or, God, I hope THEY Get It, as the case may be...

I am a teacher by trade, meaning that I spent countless hours and  thousands of dollars between the years of 1991-1995 to obtain a piece of paper from the state of saying that I am "qualified" to teach students "stuff." :o)  

I am also a home school mom, meaning that I have taught my children at home (formally for the past 9 years) but technically since each of my children was born.

A little disclaimer here:

1.  I do NOT believe that you need a teaching certificate to home school.  I just happen to have one.  Sometimes, it's a liability, but that is another blog post.

2.  I do NOT own a denim jumper.  :o)

After several years of allowing my certificate to "collect dust" at the Department of Ed, I brushed it off last year and I am now employed as an education specialist with a virtual charter school.  Students enroll in our accredited public school, the receive and complete their curriculum in their homes under the supervision of a "learning coach" usually the parent.  I am the "chick with the certificate" who oversees their education...providing support, assistance, and expertise where needed.

Normally, my home schooling mom "hat" and my public school employee "hat" don't come into conflict.  The end of March and the beginning of April is the glaring exception to this.

STATE ASSESSMENTS

As a public school teacher, I am well aware of No Child Left Behind, Adequate Yearly Progress, Quality Performance Accreditation, and how all of that trickles down to the doozy...FUNDING.  I  believe that quality education in this country is a right, not a privilege, and I commend people who are concerned about doing their best to make sure that we provide excellent education to America's children.   

As a parent, it infuriates me that the way to check and see that quality teaching is occurring is to force-feed my child very specific information for 6 months and then put him in a highly stressful testing situation.  I personally don't care if my children call adding up a group of numbers and dividing by how many numbers you have "mean" or "average."  I just care that they know how to do it.  It infuriates me that not only does my fourth grader need to know how to solve a story problem correctly, but he needs to be able to find the crazy...never-in-a-million-years-would-someone-make-THAT-mistake-when-trying-to-make-correct-change mistake that some fictitious "person" made.  I would like someone to tell me when in "real life" a person analyzes the reading material that comes across their desk as "narrative, description, problem-solution, sequence of events,  or cause and effect," UNLESS they are a teacher.

So here I sit, waiting for my children to finish taking their state assessment tests with my back against the rock and my feet propped up on the proverbial hard place.

One day down, two to go.