It's all Over but the Waiting

Today was one more day in my life in the state that has more bureaucracy than China. Today's bureaucratic moment was a standardized test proving that I am qualified to teach English Learners. Let's forget, for a moment, that I just finished a Master's program in education that prepared me for the realities of today's student population, including English Learners. Fine. Whatever. California will not believe it from the A's I received in "Strategies for Teaching Culturally and Liguistically Diverse Students", "Multicultural Education", and "Literacy Across the Curriculum". I have to take the test. Oh, and I'm also supposed to attend 10 DAYS at a district-sponsored seminar about all this stuff. Oh, the 10 days? Those are class days. Oh, and always Tuesday and Thursday, so with my school's block schedule, that's the equivalent of 20 instructional days with two of my classes and ALL MY PREP PERIODS (because I don't get a prep every day). All so I can take the test. The standardized test.

We're in education, right? So we understand assessment and the need for assessment and reliability and validity and test bias -- in fact, all of these concepts are tested on this test. This test, which I think *fingers crossed* I passed, asked a lot of tricky questions. This was not a straight-forward, "Do you know the information?", but "Do you know how to read this question closely enough to weed out the correct answer from the distractors?" Right. Because tricky multiple choice test questions are the best way to assess understanding and not to assess vocabulary or test-taking ability. Good luck to the English Learners in the crowd (yes, even teachers don't always speak English as their primary language -- which is a good thing).

Oh, and many of the people taking the test were old-skool teachers who hadn't mananged to take care of this requirement five years ago when it was first instituted and now the Williams Act requires them to do it and boy, are they grumpy. Grumpy McGrumpersons. They got all snarky about the requirements to keep the test site secure. Just shut up already and put your cell phone in the car and don't whine. They man told you to go downstairs because upstairs is off-limits until the test starts. Deal. Stop yammering about how stupid it all is. You're worse than my students who at least complain about things that generally are stupid (or that they're too stupid to know aren't actually stupid). You -- should be smart enough to know that people DO cheat on tests. Even teachers. Even teachers who don't especially want to take a test that they think is both insulting and difficult. Go figure the administrators are worried about cheating. (Not, I must add, did I actually witness any teacher who in any way seemed to be cheating on the test. They were all on the level, but God, get over it. People cheat. I see it in my room every day.)

No. I don't know when I get my scores. I'm not sure I really care. I've either passed, or I haven't. Judging from the number of repeat-takers in the room today, I would not be the first person to fail a test.