Day one and my brain is already fried

Just started a new project scoring ACT tests. Talk about picking your brain! The training for this project is going to take all week, which was a bit strange to me at first, but now I can see why so much time is allowed. This is mind-boggling. I am scoring writing essays and that is all I can tell you...I can't talk about subject matter or about the project itself, but I can tell you that education shouldn't have to be this damn complicated. Also, if this is the finest and brightest entering out nations colleges and universities, we are in big trouble!

No wonder more and more jobs are being shipped out overseas. It's not really the kids' faults, but the educational system itself. It's a mess. The hoops these kids are being forced to jump through are absolutely ridiculous. Kids can't read, can't put together a proper sentence or a complete thought, they can't spell, too many stink at math and they are going backwards in the sciences instead of progressing forwards. Our nation is in big trouble if education reform doesn't happen soon!

I have my rubric, fortunately, to use to sort out the messes. The facts don't have to be correct, and the powers that be don't care about spelling or any of those "technicalities", just as long as the students follow the directions given in the prompts. Obedience is number one -- do as memorized and they get their cookie points. If they pass they can go off to college for the poor professors to deal with who will try to undo and correct 12 years of idiocy that is instilled in their brains, and start from scratch with the basic fundamentals that children should have learned in primary and secondary schools. I remember when I took my first college English course. The professor looked out at all of us and said "whatever you learned in English and writing up till now...FORGET IT...it's all wrong." And he was right.

Teachers don't get paid enough for all the challenges they are up against in today's wacky world. The elementary and secondary teachers are forced to do whatever the adminstrations tell them to do (usually administrators are ex-football jocks) and then the college professors have to try to "fix it" all. Either way, it's not an easy job. And then we scorers of the "Borg" tests must score in silence and not complain or talk about it. What a world. I am glad I am done raising kids.