The Glitches

Yesterday 27,000 Hoosier kids were bumped out of the online Istep test.  All over the state, they had to discontinue testing. Today testing was going pretty well until around 11:00 when we started getting a ton of glitches, and we got the official announcement that the dept. of ed discontinued testing all over the state for the second day.  So great that this test which determines our school's letter grade is so well designed and monitored by the lovelies at McGraw Hill.  Thanks, McGraw Hill!  You're doing a heckuva job!   As the fifth graders filtered back to class after 45 minutes of wasted time, one little guy wouldn't budge.  His teacher asked me to talk with him.  When the room was empty, I asked him if he was frustrated by the testing glitches.  He started crying, "For the last 2 nights my mom has made me go to bed about 4 hours early and we didn't even do the test either day.  And now she's going to keep doing it, and we're never going to take this test."  Man alive, that irked me no end.  Not sure I believe him about the 4 hours, but still, the kid's fun time is being cut short for no reason.  And that's something I'll never support. He was crying pretty hard so I told him about my tooth extraction and the chisels and the mallets, and the drilling and the taste of blood in my mouth that's making me nauseous all the time and how I was going to stay home today but I came to work because of Istep, and in this way I communicated that I understood his frustrations and that we both had legitimate beefs. He went back to class and then my boss told me to go home and go to sleep.  I took a long nap and I may be feeling better.  Let's see what tomorrow will bring. Please send some good vibes to the Hoosier kids who are dealing with this aggravation. And always remember to do whatever you can to explain to others how dumb standardized tests are.