1st - Conference (first time I’ve had 1st period conference…ever)
2nd -Web Design
3rd - Webmaster
4th - Lunch
5th - BCIS II-Dual Credit
6th - BCIS I
7th - BCIS I
8th - BCIS I

I am pretty happy with this schedule, especially since I requested the first period conference last spring to help make my life a little simpler since I will be dropping off my daughter at one school (kindergarten!) and my son at another.

I’m still the Key Club co-advisor and I am really excited about the prospects for the new year.  I’m also going to be the UIL coach for the computer applications and current issues & events teams.

Perhaps the biggest change is that I am now the Webmasters teacher, meaning that my class will be responsible for maintaining the “Student Life” section on our school website.  Here’s hoping I’ll really be able to put my money where my mouth has been when someone else was in charge!

Governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) has been implicated in a prostitution ring and will probably resign (sooner rather than later would be my guess).  See details here.

Former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, who is currently serving on Hillary Clinton’s finance committee, has been quoted as saying that the only reason Barack Obama is doing well is because he’s black.  See details here.

Yes, teachers put their certifications (and therefore their livelihoods) on the line for the “privilege” of administering this test. I’ll be administering the TAKS in: (1) a room that is not my own, (2) with students who (more than likely) are not my own, (3) with a test administration partner who is not a member of my department. I am to “actively monitor” students (i.e., no reading, grading, computer use, planning of lessons) without interfering with their ability to concentrate on the task at hand. Windows in the doors cannot be covered (so as to facilitate spying active monitoring) but all bulletin boards, posters, etc., must be covered.
And my school has been told to expect outside monitors from Central Administration and possibly the Ivory Tower Down in Austin TEA. Yes, we can’t be trusted to ethically administer this test despite the fact our campus has not experienced any serious test irregularities for at least the last eleven years (when I first came to our campus).

The Texas Education Agency is currently headed by a man named Robert Scott. According to the TEA website, Scott is a “veteran education policy expert,” a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and a member of the State Bar. (I am the only one who finds it ironic that the head of public education in Texas has never been a teacher?)

I wonder how long it has been since Scott has been required, as a part of his job, to sign oaths saying he will dutifully administer a test outside his field of expertise to students he has probably not taught (assuming he has ever taught students in the first place).

Oh, did I mention that an article in the Dallas Morning News said:

“Mr. Scott’s appointment was sidetracked in June [2007] when an internal investigation by the TEA’s inspector general cited him and other officials for improperly steering state contracts to friends. “

Can someone look up the definition of the word “irony” in the one of the four dictionaries that my eighteen charges are supposed to share tomorrow?