The Blood

We took part of the ISTEP test this week. The first day we took the math. The open-ended problems were crazily hard and I went home totally demoralized. I couldn't sleep worrying about where I went wrong this year and why I hadn't done a better job helping the peeps get ready. Around 2 in the morning, I realized that something had to be very wrong with the test. The thing was just crazy hard, as I've already told you, and I knew there was no way that 3rd graders could be expected to complete it. Come to find out, the news stories started trickling in the next day. Complaints from teachers all over the state about ISTEP meltdowns. It's been on tv news, the Indy Star, the Chicago Trib. I thought they might throw the test out, since it was clear that mistakes have been made, but no, the dept. of ED just says not to worry, they'll make the cut scores lower. Arbitrary nonsense.
During the final test, one of the peeps stabbed another peep with her pencil, causing the lead to break off in his arm. When we pulled the lead out, there was a gaping hole, with blood gurgling up. Pencil wielding peep said the kid was bothering her by humming the song from some movie about a chihuahua. I blame ISTEP for this incident, and for the resulting suspension.