All Documents Have Been Graded For This RIB

That's the message that teachers across the city have been getting when they access regents exams in a vain attempt to scores them for students.

Look, for three full days, we have have not been unable to access these exams because the private, for-profit company that has been asked to scan and present the exams to us for grading has not been able to do their job. We've sat in these rooms for this time accomplishing nothing (a particular pet peeve of mine) because our department struck a deal with some company that couldn't even deliver on their end of the bargain. This screw up is jeopardizing the graduation expectations of high school seniors all across the city and I'm sure that several hundred family vacations are currently hanging in the balance (with the potential for summer school still alive for many teens who would otherwise know their scores by now).

This whole time we at our schools (grading along the time honored tradition) would have been finished with this task, or would have been very close to finished, by now and none of this would be happening.

You see, we would have delivered, as we have for decades now. They didn't. 

And who will they turn to to fix their screw up? Why us, of course!


The DOE, as rumor would have it, has decided to offer us all per session (DOE-speak for overtime) on Thursday and Friday evenings -and all day on Saturday, as well as all day Sunday- to make up for this train wreck. Yep.

We're in this fiasco because the department had decided -astoundingly!- that it was us who could not be trusted to produce accurate results for our own students! That's right. They concocted this system as a way to keep us and our professional judgement at bay with regard to assessing our own students at our own schools. We're here because we weren't trusted to act as professionals. 

People who read this blog know that I really don't complain and I really don't gripe. Maybe I'll throw out the occasional piece of sarcasm, but wining isn't something I really do. But as you read the blogs and Ed. news sites tonight figuring out exactly what is causing this mess, and as you go into your grading 'hub' tomorrow wondering if it will continue for yet another day and wondering when you will find out how well your students performed on their* state tests  I'd like to you to remember just one thing:

We're here at these grading hubs experiencing this fiasco because they said that they could not trust us to be professional!

And ain't that a hoot!?

*(they being the same Ed Reformers who contracted and created this crummy regents grading system)