So Time-Consuming

Between the actual testing, the several "diagnostic" tests that came before it, and the pep rally, I am calculating that we have lost at least 18 days of instruction to the FCAT this year. Out of 180 days of school, that is 10% of the instructional time. I am more than one month behind schedule compared to previous years. How is that insanity supposed to improve the state of education?

Of course, I reached (and passed) the point where I gave up on it all. High stakes testing, VAM, additional hurdles toward recertification, Marzano's lunacy, the 3% pay cut all Florida public employees are experiencing, added to the fact that, adjusted for inflation, I am making the same amount of money as I was when I started teaching 15 years ago, all these reasons have combined to first erode, then destroy my enthusiasm for this profession. A vocation has become a job. This is my job. I go in a classroom, teach to those kids who are willing to listen to me, ignore the others just as long as they don't endanger the safety of their classmates (after all, I am paid to babysit them while their parents earn a real wage). For the second year in a row, our administrators told us very clearly to let 8th-graders go to high school, not to fail those problem children, lest we might have to deal with them again next year.

Don't blame me. I used to care.