Black History Month 2022

February is Black History Month.  While "officially" recognized in 1976 by President Gerald Ford, the celebration has its roots dating back to 1926, with the celebration of Negro History Week.  Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History choose the second week in February because of the recognition of the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas.

For both the week and the month, the focus remains the same, the coordinated teaching of the history of African Americans.  To recognize the overlooked contributions and impacts that African Americans have had on the course of American history.   The Hidden Figures if you will.  President Ford recognized this, for his part urging Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."

This mission also serves as a powerful antidote to the tendency we have toward creating selective histories, false narratives, alternative facts.  The early celebration of Negro History Week in the 1930s had to counter the growing and dangerous myth of the "lost cause" of the South.  The false narrative that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, that it was a war of Northern cultural and economic aggression toward the South.  A lie meant to maintain a Supremacist status quo.  As Woodson would write, "When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it."  This aspect of the month's recognition has led some to claim its focus is rewriting history.  

It's not.  

Instead, it's refocusing history.  Removing lies and myths that have been perpetuated for too long and have had too many lasting harmful effects, and in their place shedding light on long dormant corners of our history.  Uncovering the reality of history, in many instances for the first time.

We've seen the shock this causes to the American conscience.  How many white Americans learned about the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 for the first time by watching HBO's Watchman?  How about the Wilmington coup of 1891, focused on ousting a biracial local government and replace it with a white supremacist one?  That being the only successful coup in American history.  How many people learned about the contributions of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and the other Hidden Figures mathematicians through the eponymous film?  How many know about Hiram Revels, Bessie Coleman, Robert Sengstacke Abbott, Madam C.J. Walker?  Why do we more often find out about them outside of history class?

This is why the fight to preserve and improve our education system is so important.  For us to not give into those voices that are hiding the truth through the lens of "parental insight into eduction."  It's time we taught the truth and the whole truth.

This month is the perfect time for that education on an individual level to combat any attempts to hide it again.  Read African American authors, watch television and film from African American artists (which we are doing).  Google "Black History you should know" and explore - there are dozens of articles that could provide a great springboard for education.

There's a wealth of information out there to make this month an enriching experience.  All you have to do is be willing to learn.

Maus

“I moved past total bafflement to trying to be tolerant of people who may possibly not be Nazis, maybe. Dammit I can’t believe the word ‘Damn’ would get the book jettisoned out of schools on its own, but that’s really where the genuine focus seemed to be.”

“I think they’re so myopic in their focus and they’re so afraid of what’s implied and having to defend the decision to teach Maus as part of the curriculum that it led to this daffily myopic response.”

“It has the breath of autocracy and fascism about it. I’m still trying to figure out how this could be… I think of it as a harbinger of things to come.”

Art Spiegelman on the banning of Maus

The seminal graphic novel Maus has been in the news a lot lately.  Usually, it's a cause for celebration when comics are being talked about to such a degree, but this time sadly, the attention comes from a moronically misguided decision by a Tennessee school board.  The McMinn County School board in Tennessee voted 10-0 in favor of banning the graphic novel from its schools.

Maus is not only widely regarded as one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, it is also considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century.   The novel, told in two parts, tells of author Art Spiegelman's father's experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust.  It tells the story through a bit of allegory, with mice representing the Jewish people, cats representing the Nazis, and ethnic Poles as pigs.  And the novel provides an unflinching portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust.  A cartoonist by trade, Spiegelman preferred the comic form because it forced you to look.

Because it is an unsanitized account, the graphic novel does have eight mild curses and a small drawing of nude female mouse (a very small image of a mother in a bathtub having committed suicide by slitting her wrists).  The board cited the reasons, as well as mentions of murder, violence, and suicide as part of its decision. “The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book, and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that,” McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison said during the board meeting.

"There's only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling themselves these days."

Neil Gaiman, on Twitter in response

I shouldn't be surprised, but I always am.  This is just another part of the fear of education.  Make no mistake, there is a significant portion of us that is truly afraid of education.  Afraid of the power of education.  How it can affect people, how it can change them, how it can move us.  This is the same impetus behind the seditious parental voice in education laws, behind Iowa's proposal to add cameras to every school so parents can livestream their child's classroom.  It's behind the opposition to critical race theory, behind the Indiana laws requiring teachers not to comment on the morality of history or political positions, and to deny them the ability to ask a student's opinion on anything.

It denies that children have any independent value on their own.  They are merely an extension of their parents will.  And they are to be instructed in only what their parent wishes them to be instructed, so that they believe exactly as their parents believe.

A child cannot be allowed to have independent thought.  That would not do.  Because their mind might be changed.

To that end, teachers must be only babysitters.  They become extensions of the parent's in providing only the instruction on topics they agree to and with.  Children are clones to be programmed with that content.  And that content must be carefully screened.  Anything offensive, anything challenging, anything that doesn't fit the norm must be removed.

We know the truth, though.  History is never on the side of those who burn books.  They may have their time for a moment, but the truth will out.  And it would seem to be the definition of futility to ban books from a school library and curriculum when most of those kids have access to anything and everything in their pocket.  But then again, it's not about reality, it's about control.

It is a consolation that Maus has returned as the number one best seller on Amazon.  A nearby comic store in Knoxville offered to provide every student of the schools with a copy of the book.  More people are talking about Maus now, than they were just a few weeks ago.  And more people are talking about the Holocaust than they were a few weeks ago.

With that, maybe just maybe, we can learn from history.  And that can help keep us from repeating it.

“If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.”

Ray Bradury, Farenheit 451

The Obsolete Mind

"You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be.  This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one.  It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time.  It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.  But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.  This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth.  He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone."

Rod Serling's opening narration for The Obsolete Man, 

The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episode 29, June 2, 1961

The Twilight Zone keeps becoming more and more prescient.

Indiana, like several other states, is debating new legislation ostensibly aimed at removing bias from education.  Labeled "Education Matters," Senate Bill 167 and House Bill 1134 create a system in which teacher's lesson plans must be posted by June 30 for the following year and available to parents to review, curriculum must be determined by a committee composed of 40% parents and community members and 40% educators, allow parents to opt their child out of any part of the curriculum they desire with a simple request, prohibit educators from repeatedly interacting with students on social-emotional issues without prior parental consent, and prohibit teachers from providing any qualitative assessment on a host of categories.

There are a lot of sections of these bills that are getting attention.  For example, the bill includes:

Chapter 1.5 Diginity and Nondiscrimination in Education

Sec. 2 (a) In accordance with IC 20-33-1-1, a state agency ..., school corporation, or qualified school shall not include or promote the following concepts as a part of a course of instruction or in a curriculum or instructional program or allow teachers or other employees of the school corporation or qualified school, acting in their official capacity, to use supplemental instructional materials that include or promote the following concepts:

(1) That any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently superior or inferior to another sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.

(2) That an individual, by virtue of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

...

(5) That an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.

(6) That an individual, by virtue of the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.

(7) That any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, responsibility, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.

...

The intent is clear.  This is the anti-"Critical Race Theory" boogey man bill.  This is really an "anti-dealing with race in anyway" bill.  It isn't even subtle.  There are provisions that prevent schools from promoting any kind of race based instruction for their teachers.  There are provisions that prohibit any kind of racial sensitivity training for school employees.  As you can see above, teachers are prohibited from taking any side in discussing this with students. It prohibits colleges from including anything related to the categories above in a teacher preparation program.  All curriculum must be approved by a newly created committee and every parent can opt out of any portion they object to with the ease of a click.

From the section provided above, teachers could not, for example, state that Nazis are bad, because Nazism is a political affiliation.  Because teachers can not even include anything above in their instruction, they could not include contemporaneous statements of people regarding their positions in the Civil War, or the Civil Rights movement.  Teachers could not discuss any kind of systemic racism, only referring to it as an individual belief.

Another section even prevents a qualified school from providing a student with ongoing or recurring consultation, collaboration, or intervention services for mental, social-emotional, or psychological health issues, or from referring a student to any such services without prior parental permission.  What's the point of a school counselor then?  

There are so many sections like this, it's almost overwhelming.  But this is not the worst part of the bill.

The worst part of the bill is not what it adds to education laws, it's what it removes.  Existing educational law has the following provision:

Section 12 IC 20-30-5-17: Sec. 17 (b) A student shall not be required to participate in a personal analysis, an evaluation, or a survey, that is not directly related to academic instruction and that reveals or attempts to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:

(1) political affiliation;

(2) religious beliefs or practices;

(3) mental or psychological conditions that may embarrass the student or the student's family;

(4) sexual behavior or attitudes;

(5) illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;

(6) critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship;

(7) legally recognized privileged or confidential relationships, including a relationship with a lawyer, minister, or physician; or

(8) income (except as required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program);

without the prior consent of the student if the student is an adult or an emancipated minor or the prior written consent of the student's parent if the student is an unemancipated minor.

The new proposed legislation removes the defense of a request directly related to academic instruction and removes all of "concerning" limitations.  So the new text reads:

Section 12 IC 20-30-5-17: Sec. 17 (b) A student shall not be required to participate in a personal analysis, an evaluation, or a survey, that reveals or attempts to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings without the prior written consent of the student if the student is an adult or an emancipated minor or the prior written consent of the student's parent if the student is an unemancipated minor.

Now a teacher cannot have a student provide his opinions without the prior written consent of the student's parents.  

Seriously?!?

How far does this extend?  Doesn't that just prevent a teacher from asking a student to provide any answer in English, Arts, Music, Literature, etc..?  Previously, the law was structured to have a teacher avoid topics that would be illegal to ask under other provisions of the law.  It was having a teacher avoid First Amendment issues, issues of privilege, issues of embarrassment/harassment.  Now a teacher cannot ask a student to reveal their opinion about anything without the parent's written permission.

And this strikes at the ugly heart of the proposed law - it does not view children as people.

Children, under this provision, have no independent persona of their own.  They are an extension of their parents.  And they are to be instructed in only what their parent wishes them to be instructed, so that they believe exactly as their parents believe.

A child cannot be allowed to have independent thought.  That would not do. 

Their mind is obsolete.

This is simply an extension of that primal fear that White conservatives have, of their children going off to college and being corrupted by "liberal" thought.  The fear that colleges are just indoctrinating our youth.

It was never true, but that's beside the point.  Sure, you may find a handful of professors that will sneer at conservative thought.  But that's not the reason that children would change their beliefs when they went off to college.  That doesn't happen because people are pressuring them to change their beliefs.  It happens because they go out into the world and encounter a wider world of differing thoughts and experiences.  It's because they escape the bubble of their existence and find out what they really believe, not just what they were told to believe.

All we are seeing is an attempt to enlarge the bubble.  We're seeing parents desperate to keep their children under their belief system, by making sure they are exposed to nothing else.  To never have their beliefs questioned or challenged.  To never see or experience anything else.  To never have anyone disagree with them.

To make sure their children never really grow.  No challenge, no struggle, no growth.

The mind is treated as a slate to be programmed, not grown.  Education must only input facts and data, and never teach to question.  Do not encourage curiosity.  Do not encourage debate.  Do not encourage real belief in anything.

To that end, teachers must be only babysitters.  They become extensions of the parent's in providing only the instruction on topics they agree to and with.  Children are clones to be programmed with that content.

That's where we all lose from this law.  It seeks to create a generation of compliant copies of their parents.  An appeasement to keep our current balance, a detente if you will.

If there is any good news, it's that the current generation won't stand for it.  They are already calling us out on our bull, and they will see right through this as well.  They are rightfully deconstructing their faiths already and are finding the earthly representations of them wanting.  They will do the same with education.  It's already been occurring, as far too many of them see the harm that has already been done.

Hopefully, we can convince the Indiana House and Senate of their error as well.

Let's avoid that Twilight Zone if we can.

The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct.  He was obsolete.  But so is the State, the entity he worshiped.  Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody.  When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all.  Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete.  A case to be filed under "M" for "Mankind" - in The Twilight Zone.

Serling's scripted closing narration for The Obsolete Man

The Power of Music

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

Victor Hugo

I'm a little late in sharing this and I know it has circulated quite far, but it is still impressive.  The video shows Marta Cinta Gonzalez Saldana, a former ballet dancer now afflicted with Alzheimer's reacting to hearing Swan Lake again, bursting forth in choreography and emotion.  It's a perfect example of the power of music on memory.

The video, taken in 2019, comes with a couple of large caveats.  The video is intercut with segments of another ballerina at their prime in full regalia.  It is important to note that this is not Gonzalez Saldana, nor is that ballet Swan Lake.  There has also been difficulty confirming that Gonzalez Saldana was a prima ballerina in New York, as has been claimed.  But those are minor details.  The power of the video lies in Gonzelez Saldana's recognition of the music and her muscle memory of the choreography.

We are just now beginning to fully appreciate the effects of music on memory.  Understanding how music ties into our earliest sound recognition and memory.  Connecting the link of emotion and memory through the powerful impact music has on us.  There are organizations dedicated to utilizing the power of music in those suffering from a host of cognitive and physical challenges.  We're seeing how music can unlock decades lost memories in those with dementia and other forms of Alzheimers.  

Music has power.

Far beyond what we have ever attributed to it.

We have always known the impact music can have on our emotional states.  Music can soothe the savage breast.  It calms us.  It hypes us.  It centers us. It relaxes us.  It moves us to action.

Look at something like Quarantine Cabaret on Facebook.  A venue for artists of all stripes to post music and dance on Facebook if for no other reason than to brighten others' days throughout this pandemic.  A small way to improve the world just a little bit.

We now see the impact it has on our mental health.

In the video, we also see how that impact on memory can be combined with other senses.  With muscle memory, in particular here with this dancer.  How the combined effect can be greater than the whole.

To me, this just shows why continued music and arts education is so important.  Why we cannot dismiss these as non-essential learning.  Yes, STEM education is valuable, but what good is math if we do not learn how to communicate it well.  What good is science, if we cannot relate it to our lives, cannot create meaningful connections with it.  If they cannot be folded into the greater story of our lives.  It's why STEM should always be STEAM, especially with music.

After all, music crosses all other areas of education. 

Music is language, both as in it is its own language and communicates the language of its writing.

Music is math.  Its language is written in fraction.

Music is science.  The manipulation of different wavelengths to create different pitches.

Music is literature.  The communication of story and emotion.

Music is history.  A picture of the society in which it is written.  Sometimes a product of, sometimes railing against.

Music matters.

It's why we need artists.  Why we need teachers.  

For our mental state and for our memory.

  

 

The Miserable State of Education in America

With Avalyn graduating from pre-school and facing Kindergarten and public school and other options, I look to what's happening in our public school system and am dismayed.  As a parent and as a spouse of an educator.  As a citizen of this state and this country.

The Texas Senate voted Monday, May 6, 2019, to pass HB-3, a House-sponsored school finance bill bringing massive changes to the STAAR test, the already ridiculous standardized test that is used to measure individual student, teacher, and school success.  Four more writing tests have been added, raising the number of tests that Texas students need to pass in order to progress through and graduate Texas schools to 21, which includes five end-of-course tests for high school students.  This number had been at 15 in 2012, dropped to a merciful 5 in 2013 after a wave of protests, and is now back at an all time high.  The new assessments added focus in grades 3-8 and add, by a vote of 18-13, a new assessment in kindergarten (?!? - expletives deleted).  All passed at the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week.  Go on Texas, show us how you really feel about teachers.

This of course comes after even more controversies arise surrounding the STAAR test itself.  This years fifth grade STAAR test included the f-word in illustrations on 15,697 versions of a practice test.  Studies have shown the STAAR reading tests are questioning kids at two grade levels higher than what the test should be.  And who can forget the poet who could not answer the STAAR test questions written about her own poem.

And with all of this testing that has become a part of student's lives, Texas only ranks 40th in education.  Overall it receives a C-.  This breaks down into a C for Chance for Success, a C- in K-12 achievement, and a D in School Finance.  And this isn't new.  We've been low in the states rankings for a long time.  In 2010, we were 30th.

Sadly, it's not like the United States does much better in worldwide rankings.

Let's set aside how we are failing teachers.  Let's set aside having a Secretary of Education actually trying to undermine the public school system.  Let's set aside the misguided hope in charter schools.

Let's just look at numbers.

According to the World Top 20 Project, a project of the New Jersey Minority Educational Development non-profit, the United States in the first quarter of 2019 rates 14th in the World's Best Education Systems.  This is out of 201 world national education systems.  Last year, for all of 2018, we did not even make the top 20.  This list is determined based on categories that include:

• Early Childhood Enrollment Rates for 3 to 4 year old
• Primary Completion for 6 to 11 year old
• Lower Secondary Completion for 11 to 14 year old
• High School Graduation Rates for 14 to 18 year old
• College Graduation Rates for 18 to 25 year old
• Primary Test Scores for 6 to 11 year old
• Lower Secondary Test Scores for 11 to 14 year old
• School Safety Levels for 3 to 25 year old
• Out of School Children Ages for 3 to 14 year old
• Adult Illiteracy Levels for 15 year old and up
• National Student to Teacher Ratio, and
• Free Access to Schools from Early Childhood to Secondary

We didn't even crack the top in any of these categories.

And yet our solution is more standardized testing across the board, a method that we know DOES NOT WORK.  The Washington Post went as far as to list 34 reasons why they don't work in 2017.  Among other things, commercially produced machine-scored standardized tests:

• Are unavoidably biased by social-class, ethnic, regional, and other cultural differences
• Unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep
• Radically limit teacher ability to adapt to learner differences
• Provide minimal to no useful feedback to classroom teachers
• Are keyed to the deeply flawed, knowledge-fragmenting "core" curriculum adopted in 1893
• Have led to the neglect of play, music, art, and other non-verbal ways of learning
• Hid problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring
• Penalize test-takers who think in nonstandard ways (as the young frequently do)
• Give control of the curriculum to test manufacturers (Hello Pearson)
• Encourage use of threats, bribes, and other extrinsic motivators to raise scores
• Assume that what the young will need to know in the future is already known
• Emphasize minimum achievement to the neglect of maximum performance
• Produce scores which can be - and sometimes are - manipulated for political purposes
• Create unreasonable pressures to cheat (looking at you Georgia scandal)
• Use arbitrary, subjectively-set pass-fail cut scores
• Reduce teacher creativity and the appeal of teaching as a profession
• Lessen concern for and use of continuous evaluation
• Have no "success in life" predictive power
• Unfairly channel instructional resources to learners at or near the pass-fail cut score
• Are open to scoring errors with life-changing consequences
• Are at odds with deep-seated American values about individuality and worth
• Create unnecessary stress and negative attitudes toward schooling
• Perpetuate the artificial compartmentalization of knowledge by field
• Channel increasing amounts of tax money away from classrooms and into corporate coffers (again, Hello Pearson)
• Waste the vast, creative potential of human variability
• Block instructional innovations that can't be evaluated by machine
• Unduly reward mere ability to retrieve secondhand information from memory
• Subtract from available instructional time
• Lend themselves to "gaming" - strategies to improve the success rate of guessing
• Make time - a parameter largely unrelated to ability - a factor in scoring
• Create test fatigue, aversion, and eventual refusal to take tests seriously
• Hide poor quality test items behind secrecy walls
• Undermine a fundamental democratic principle that those closest to the work are best positioned to evaluate its quality
• According to the National Academy of Sciences report to Congress, don't increase student achievement.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, focused more on the school related impact.  That does not even get into the effect it's having on the kids.  At the grossest level, it's amazing that test officials have to have instructions prepared for what to do when a student vomits on the test.  As if it would be expected.

Or we could look at the spike in middle school suicides, doubling between 2007 and 2014.  This spike has been tied to increased pressure to achieve academically, more economic uncertainty, increased fear of terrorism, and social media.  A big part of the increased pressure to achieve academically is linked to the increase adoption of Common Core standards and new, more rigorous high stakes tests over the same time period.

Experts would point to the same kind of rigorous testing in countries like South Korea and point to an important lesson we would learn regarding student resistance to the high-stakes testing environment.  Instead of seeking to emulate this system, perhaps we should be wary of its potential effects like the fact that 1 in 4 youth in South Korea has contemplated suicide.

The sad thing is, we know what works.  Play.  Particularly in early childhood education.  Perhaps Mr. Rogers knew best after all.  "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.  But for children play is serious learning.  Play is really the work of childhood."  Children need to be moving, to be running, to solve problems on the playground, to build, to create to laugh, to experience.  And play can be guided or it can be free form, both have benefits and place in education and development.  Look at Finland.  Number 1 in the 2019 first quarter and Number 2 for 2018 overall.  Children don't start school until age 6 in preschool and then age 7 in kindergarten.  There a sizeable chunk of those student's day is devoting to play.  Not the measly 20 minutes most American schools might give.

And research supports this type of learning.  A research summary entitled "The Power of Play" concluded, "In the short and long term, play benefits cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development...When play is fun and child-directed, children are motivated to engage in opportunities to learn."

So why don't we do this?

One primary reason - it doesn't make anyone money. In particular, it won't make Pearson Education any money.

As of 2012, Pearson had nearly 40% of the testing market, triple their nearest competitor.  That's everything from the STAAR test to the SAT prep and beyond.  A hypothetical student could take Pearson tests from Kindergarten through at least 8th grade, a test they studied for using Pearson curriculum and textbooks to prepare for, taught to them by teachers certified by their own Pearson test. If at some point they are tested for a learning disability, that's also a Pearson test, and even if they dropped out, to avoid those tests, and wanted to take the GED, that's also now a Pearson test.

Pearson has enjoyed spectacular success and profits, despite their track record being littered with complaints regarding technical glitches, slow grading, and errors in their exams.  Even worse, they are notorious for using horrible practices for hiring graders for their exams and for the quotas used in scores awarded particularly in the writing exams.  Let's not even talk about their use of confidentiality agreements which prevent teachers from discussing errors in the exams.

Pearson has spent $160,000 in lobbying so far this year.  That's down due to the monopoly they now enjoy.  At their peak, they spent $1.08 million in 2011.  Even to the point of hiring a former House Public Education Chairman, Rob Eiseler, in 2013.  Maybe the problem's here?  Or is it just me?

Perhaps it's time that our legislators should care think more what is effective for the students, than what is beneficial for Pearson.

Novel, I know.