Pushin dem childrens raht on ahead

Been offline for awhile and can't access Blogger from work (you've heard enough about that). Anyway, latest bitch about pisd is the announcement given in today's "9th grade expectation graduation initiative meeting." The stats they gave us in the meeting show that not one 8th grader in the district failed last year. They passed every single one of them to cook the books and look good for NCLB. A teacher mentioned that she used to work at one of the middle schools in the district and that everytime a teacher failed a student (6-8th graders), he/she would have to fill out an IEP (indiv educ plan) on that student and discuss ways that the teacher could've improved teaching in order to make that student pass. This doesn't sound bad in theory, but the directive was given in such a way that it intimidated the teachers. Teachers who had to fill out IEPs were looked upon as poor teachers, so everyone would just cook the gradebooks. This explains why at least 2 students in each of my classes can't read at all and why none of them can recognize a noun. It also explains why the students have no initiative or desire to try. One of them said today that 40s and 70s are the same thing, so why bother? NOT IN MY CLASS! :o)

This whole Katrina thing has got me down, and I think I'm not alone. Morale is very low at work, and everyone I talk to says that they are having sleep problems and are overwhelmed and stressed more than usual for no reason. There's a strange energy in the air everywhere, it seems. Am I nuts?