You know, I’ve been thinking long and hard about this issue.  I really believe that if we want kids to be college and career ready when they leave high school, then we really need to have children be academic and school ready when they leave babyhood.  How do we do that?  Why, we raise standards and begin giving babies annual standardized assessments of course!  And in order to be sure that parents buy into these standards and assessments, we need to begin rating parents based on those assessments, combined with triannual home visits.  If the baby’s parent fails those performance reviews one year, we will devise an improvement plan for them.  If they fail two years in a row, they will lose custody of their child.  Sounds fair, doesn’t it?

Now, for just a small sampling of the new Standards I am proposing:

Babies will be able to smile in response to human interaction by the age of 4 weeks.  Spontaneous smiling due to gas or other bodily functions will not count.

Babies will be able to use basic signs and utterances to get adult attention by the age of three months.  Crying is not allowed as it is a crutch form of communication that must be discouraged.

Babies will be able to sit unsupported for 30 minutes by the age of four months.  They must not use hands to prop themselves because that would be cheating.

Babies must be able to stand independently, without interference from any well-meaning adult by the age of nine months.

Babies must be able to verbally produce three word sentences by the age of ten months.  Goo-goo-gaa-gaa does not count as a word.  Only those found in Webster’s Dictionary will be deemed acceptable.

Babies must be able to walk unassisted, without wobble, by the age of 10 1/2 months.

There will be no allowances given for children born with disabilities or medical frailties.  They must be held to the same high standards if we are to succeed in the global economy.

The assessment given annually will be in written form and will consist of ten multiple choice questions.

Sample Question taken from my proposed NYS Assessment for Baby School and Academic Readiness:

1)  Can you walk?

a. Sometimes

b. Not always

c.  Often

d.  Kind of

These Standards and Assessments will ensure that children will be prepared to enter pre-school by the age of three, ready to be successful.  We are losing precious time allowing babies to develop at their own rates.  That is an idea of the past which must give way for the future.  With all the technological advances available to us today, our babies should be developing at a much faster rate than our global competitors’ babies.  We must offer families support in helping their children reach these more rigorous standards, such as specially designed lesson plans and videos that will teach all the necessary skills.  Specialists could even be brought into the home if the local municipalities can figure out a way to fund them within their already overstretched budgets.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and if we work together, our babies can be the global leaders of the future, one developmentally inappropriate step at a time!

*This message is a personal spewing of frustration and shall not reflect upon those with whom I serve. If you cannot understand that this entire post is dripping with sarcasm, then there is no help for you.

Teachers are payed well.

Teachers have excellent health benefits.

Teachers get summers off…and weekends…and snow days.

Teachers are represented by strong Unions.

Teachers cannot be fired on the whim of an adminstrator, or because they have climbed too high on the payscale.

All true.  Also true:

Teachers have to earn and pay for a Masters Degree in order to earn permanent certification.

Teachers cannot earn promotions.

Teachers are not paid for their summers off.

Teachers cannot earn more pay for better quality of teaching.

Teachers do not earn bonuses.

Teachers cannot take a sick day without preparing and delivering plans for the full day of work even if they are on their deathbed.

Teachers pay out of pocket for classroom supplies to the tune of hundreds of dollars which is unrecognized by most.

Teachers spend hours and hours of time outside of school business hours preparing lessons, doing research, writing reports, correcting papers, recording grades, tracking progress notes, making phone calls, answering e-mails and notes from parents, attending meetings, writing curriculum, and developing methods…nevermind that the public *thinks* (I use that term loosely) that we only work seven hour days.  If you are a Special Education teacher, add about 40 hours a year that goes to writing IEP’s (Individualized Education Plans) during your “time off.”

Teachers manage to teach children, all children, irregardless of race, socioeconomic status, mental and emotional health, ability, and parental involvement (or lack thereof.)

Teachers manage to bend to the whim of State Ed which passes unfunded mandates and then three years later retracts them once we’ve revised our entire methodology to suit the initial mandate.

A teacher’s mission everyday is to instill an interest and love of learning in a classroom of 25 or so students made up of the willing and the unwilling, the smart and the challenged, the healthy and the emotionally unstable, the well cared for and the neglected, the loved and the abused, the motivated and the unmotivated, the content and the angry, the calm and the overactive, the sweet and the nasty, the well-behaved and the aggressive, the serious and the jokers. And that’s the easy part of the job.

I am SO SICK of schools being blamed for every societal crisis, from suicides, violent acts, societal apathy, teen pregnancy, to overprescribing of ADHD medications, to the inability of Americans to compete in the world market…and I am SO SICK of teachers being torn apart as overpayed and underworked leeches of Federal and State resources.  Is the school system perfect?  Of course not!  Is every teacher worthy of their position and salary?  Of course not!  But I  find it maddening to have my profession lambasted time and again by people who don’t know the first thing about what it means to be an Educator.

<Rant Over>

And now we return to our regularly scheduled non-controversial programming.  🙂

So, I vacuum my entire first floor every single morning.  I have hardwood floors throughout, and area rugs only in the living room.  I vacuum the upstairs hardwood floors once or twice a week.  This is two weeks worth of yuck. 

How does this happen???!!!!

I do not live on a farm nor on a dirt road.  My family removes their shoes when they come home…not that I insist, but it’s just more comfortable.  How does this much dirt make it into a house????  I just don’t understand. 

How filthy must my house have been back when I worked??!!  EW!  Appalling.