have to make this quick, got a ton of work to go through...just wanna do this before I forget

but so anyway over a month ago I started recieving NEWSWEEK regularly cause I asked KCRW to send it to me when I reupped my membership with them. It's intersting I suppose, but very little of it is actually informative. And often a lot of their shit is downright insulting.

But their last issue, though kind of vanilla, inspired me on the very last page. "the Last Word" column switches back and forth between this writer, Anna Quindlen, and some white guy writer/commentator (don't recall his name and I regularly disagree with him so, I'm sure his name will show up here soon enough).

Anyway in this article is something that could interest most writers, and I think really should be read by pretty much everyone. It's scathingly funny in a way that reaffirms my belief that stupidity knows no bounds.

But it also mentions in passing that standarized testing facilities are mostly monopolies in the areas they cover. And this has long been something that has greatly irritated me, because if you're in school and you're handed a test you'd like to believe that that test has its origins somewhere within the school system that you attend. Not some independent party that not only designs the test, but grades it and reports your grade to the system who then processes you according that grade. If there is something wrong with the test or the score, often your only recourse is to appeal to the independent party *not* to the school system you are trying to work with.

I found this out when I took the CBEST a few years ago when I was considering substitute work when I had *no* money. (I've long tried to avoid going into teaching, both of my parents are teachers as are three aunts and two uncles, one cousin, and another cousin was a school counsellor. I didn't really want to go into the family business just cause it's the family business.) I looked over my mom's primer books on the subject and saw that I'd have little to no trouble with the math and grammar, but the essays looked a little tough, mostly because they were written at approximately fifth to eighth grade level. Not to show off or anything, but college composition courses expect you to write better than that when you start, and then they push you to get better.

Also, I have a *very* hard time with writing well when I'm given a topic and expected to have the final product forty-five minutes later. It really killed me on my English AP test. Give me a night to mess around with a given topic, and I promise I'll knock your socks off.

So when I took the test it was in a cramped desk in a junior high classroom on a very hot Saturday morning. It felt like detention only I couldn't breathe. I know I rushed the essays too much, but the thing is when I left the test I felt like the first essay was the stronger one of the two. (and actually wished I could redo the second, I thought if anything killed me it would be that one) So imagine my surprise when I got my letter back from the testing board that I had failed the CBEST on the basis that the first essay that I wrote was weak - the second apparently, had been much better.

I thought about appealing but it cost extra cash to do that and I get the feeling that they would just be humoring me before they said "too damned bad."

Why isn't there a recourse within the California Department of Education? More importantly, why isn't the test administered by the Department? Sure they could hire someone else to write the test. Whatever. But someone who actually knows what they want in their teachers should probably read over the tests and develop the grading system in-house. Arg. Goofy people.

Anyway, read the article. It has little to do with this subject, but it's still good.