This is an article from the CityPages Website in Minneapolis, MN, here is a link to the article:

Behind the scenes of standardized testing
By Jessica Lussenhop
published: February 23, 2011

Dan DiMaggio was blown away the first time he heard his boss say it.

The pensive, bespectacled 25-year-old had been coming to his new job in the Comcast building in downtown St. Paul for only about a week. Naturally, he had lots of questions.

At one point, DiMaggio approached his increasingly red-faced supervisor at his desk with another question. Instead of answering, the man just hissed at him.

“You know this stuff better than I do!” he said. “Stop asking me questions!”

DiMaggio was struck dumb.

“I definitely didn’t feel like I knew what was going on at all,” he remembers. “Your supervisor has to at least pretend to know what’s going on or everything falls apart.”

DiMaggio’s question concerned an essay titled, “What’s your goal in life?” The answer for a surprising number of seventh-graders was to lift 200 pounds.

Although DiMaggio had been through a training process, he found himself tripped up as he began scoring the essays. What made the organization “good” as opposed to “excellent”? What happens when the kid doesn’t answer the question at all, but writes with excellent organization about whatever the hell he wants? Did it matter that it was insane for seventh-graders to think they’d be benching 200 pounds?

DiMaggio had good reason to worry. His score could determine whether the school was deemed adequate or failing—whether it received government funding or got shut down.

DiMaggio soon learned that his boss was a temp like him.

This is the most powerful show of support on the Congressional House floor I have ever seen.  Congressman Ryan hits the nail on the head. If the video doesn’t appear in a player on this page please follow this YouTube link. 

In a recent interview Ryan spoke out against the bill saying it is just an effort by Republicans to divide the work force:
“This isn’t the old New England moderate Republican we’re seeing now.  This Tea Party radicals, quite frankly, and ideologues who are trying to jam this agenda down the throat of a very moderate state in Ohio.  I think there is  going to be some backlash. They may have the ability to get it passed, but they will feel the blowback from it.”

To make it easier for membership to keep up with the happenings in our district during these critical times I have added a widget that lists info from the Asbury Park School District website calendar . (Via the calendar’s RSS feed, if you were wondering)

You can see it down on the right with the title APBOE Calendar. As the district calendar is updated this feed will automatically reflect that. I hope this adds more usability to the website.

As always if you like this and want to see more additions, or think of something we could add but haven’t yet please let me know either by email or adding a comment with the link down below.