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Disturbing all of about two people, I took several months off from blogging.  I just needed a break; call it writer’s block, busy mom syndrome, or whatever.  After a while, it seemed like the quality of my thoughts and inspiration had degraded to the point of not being worth writing.  I hope I’m past that now.

In those months, we’ve celebrated Alpha’s graduation from UT (BS in Mathematics).  She has accepted the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship at UC-Riverside to pursue her PhD in Math.  That’s a lot of fancy speak for “one child off the payroll.”  Lest that sound dismissive, make no mistake that I’m incredibly proud of her — for her academic achievements, and for her personal growth.  She truly is ready to move on to the next step, and I know she’s going to do well.

Beta just completed her sophomore year as a Physics major at UT, and landed an internship with the Physics department for the Summer.  At her first meeting with the prof she’s working for, she was told to get a passport.  They sent her to CERN for two weeks.  Now, this is Oak Ridge, so there are a few people around here who know what CERN is.  I’ve been told repeatedly that undergraduates just don’t get that kind of opportunity.  But she did, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had a little fun joking that re-creating little black holes might not be a good thing, but she’s safely home and the world is still spinning.

Gamma spent most of her senior year working with some folks from her physics C class on their “Lemelson Project.”  In that picture, she’s in the back row, 4th from the left.  Far left in the back row is HWTFM, who took on the role of advising the team, along with a couple of other professionals from the community and the world’s greatest high school physics teacher.  They presented their invention at Eurekafest at MIT at the end of June.  She had a wonderful time hanging out for a week with other physics geeks from all over the country.  Next month, we’ll cart her (and all her stuff) off to UT, to presumably begin her major in Materials Science & Engineering.

That will leave me, for the first time since mid-1990, with only one child at home.  One child who, come October, won’t even need me to drive her around.  Delta’s a lot of fun to be around though, so I expect it will be an entertaining three years as she makes her way through the rest of high school.

Yes, I’m aware that I haven’t written here in months.  I took a break.  This morning, I sat down to finally start back, but in (foolishly, I admit) attempting an automatic upgrade to WordPress 3.0, I managed to completely take out the admin code.

That’s the part that I need to be able to write, rather than just read what I already wrote.

Fortunately, I had the old code backed up, so I’m going to be working on this thing a bit today, and will resume posting shortly.

Imagine for a moment being in a town where people have never been exposed to dogs: they know what a dog looks like, because they’ve seen pictures of them, or maybe seen them from a distance when they travel to other places… but they’ve never actually petted a dog, or walked one on a leash, or even spent five minutes observing one.

Now, some kook in the town wants to make it legal to keep pet dogs in the dog-free town.  “They will poop in the yards!” people exclaim.  “They will bark and make awful noise, and they will chase our cats!”  “Some people might even let their dogs in the house – just think of how unsanitary that would be, and how dangerous to the children!”   The townsfolk, having never been exposed to the companionship of dogs, are opposed.

Some bring up the scenario of dogfights, which attract gambling and other unsavory activities.

The dog-loving kook is fully supportive of a standard leash law, and that all dog owners should have to purchase a license from the city every year for every dog.  He supports requiring immunizations against dangerous diseases (like rabies), and the owner’s maintaining proof of such.  Many of the townsfolk mill about in opposition to the kook’s crazy dog plan, but little by little, respectable ordinary people step forward, cautiously expressing a willingness to consider the idea.

“My brother has a dog,” said one, “and he keeps burglars away from the house when my brother is gone.”  Another explains that she’d really like for her aged mother to have a dog for companionship.  Someone else mentions they’ve heard that dogs can actually be trained to assist the blind.  All of these people are in favor of reasonable limitations – no one suggests just letting the dogs run wild, stealing suppers from the table, biting children, and pooping on the town hall steps.

Can this hypothetical town accept change?  Is there any possibility that they can get past the fear of the unfamiliar, to find the benefits of a companion animal who helps guard their home, gives them a reason to go outdoors and walk, and offers unconditional love each day?

*  *  *

Now, turn your imagination 45 degrees, and see that the hypothetical town is our town.  The discussion is not about dogs, but about chickens.  The proposed regulations would be similar:  roosters would not be allowed (thus eliminating the noise component), the number of birds would be limited, confinement to the back or side yard would be required.  Registration and purchase of a license would also be required, just as it is for dogs.

The benefits are slightly different, but comparable.   Can this town ever get past its paranoia to try something new?

Mixed messages abound in the education world these days.  We want to graduate more students, but we want to make it harder to graduate; we want to add math, science, and foreign language requirements (read: add teachers), but we don’t want to increase funding for education.  And those are just a couple of examples from high school.

Higher Ed is in a similar predicament.  The goals are noble and good, but the means to achieve them are dwindling.  To wit:

• Tennessee must increase our percentage of college graduates.
• Remedial courses should be taught at community colleges, not universities.
• High school students could take remedial courses at community colleges while in high school, there by lessening the pressure on K-12 systems to hire more teachers, and also lessening the need for developmental courses at 4-year schools.
• And yet, 524 staff members at Board of Regents schools have accepted a buyout offer to save millions in salaries and benefits, but will result in fewer experienced instructors, larger classes, and fewer course offerings.

Anyone who has recently been a college student, or any parent of a college student, knows that one of the biggest challenges to graduating on time is to get into the classes one needs, when one needs them.  Offering more sections, more frequently, would undoubtedly improve the college graduation rate.  Offering fewer sections (with more students in each) less frequently cannot possibly yield improvement in the graduation rate — it will have the opposite effect.

But to keep it simple, the analogy is thus:  jump as high as you can.  Next, you must jump 50% higher… so dig a hole, stand in it, and try again.

Let me know if this works for you.  Like my physics major and rugby player daughter tells me, “gravity sucks.”

Today, I got yet another notice of a “mandatory” parent meeting, a few days from now.   It’s not the first, but the first from this particular organization.  It’s not work-related, and not an organization of which I am a member… but like the others, a group of which my children are members.

Note to the folks who orchestrate these things: the likelihood of my participation drops to near zero if you call a mandatory meeting without first asking whether I’m available, and providing information about the subject matter.  Unfortunately, I’ve already been to far too many of these (all associated with my children’s activities, not my own) where, after I’ve cancelled something far more important, I learn that the subject of the mandatory parent meeting is simply to provide information that could have been sent in an e-mail.  Yes, the very same e-mail sent to demand my presence.

It’s odd, but I’ve never had a notice that a parent-teacher conference was mandatory, although I would readily consider it such.  For that matter, no teacher has ever assigned me a time to show up without first asking when I’m available.  I’ve had children in school for 17 years now, and I’ve never missed a single one.

In three out of four of the groups I’ve gotten mandatory-meeting demands from lately, the topic was the need for volunteers.  Okay, that could have been handled by e-mail, or a note sent home with my child.    Furthermore, I’m far more likely to volunteer if you don’t first waste an hour or two of my time to make me show up somewhere, just to tell me that you need someone to bring cookies to practice or write an article for the newspaper.

Grouchy?  You bet.   I know that everyone’s mother or grandmother taught them the bit about catching more with honey than vinegar (or some variation on that theme), but it seems that all the extracurricular things my kids are involved in have gotten caught up in this business of “mandatory” meetings.

I suspect that participation will further dwindle as demands escalate.   Mine does.

This week, the Tennessee Legislature goes into a special session to consider education proposals that would make our state eligible for a share of approximately $4 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funding. One of the key provisions is to make student testing data a “significant” factor in tenure decisions and subsequent evaluations. The TEA is opposed to making it count for more than 35% of the weighting, while the Governor has asked for at least 50%.

Tennessee has one of the best data systems in the country, but we generally don’t make the best use of it. One of the reasons is the provisions built into law about who can access the data and for what purposes, but I’m sure that another of the reasons is that not enough people know how to access and use the data effectively.

I also have some questions about the Governor’s proposals:

• What would happen for teachers who teach subjects (or grade levels) that aren’t part of the standardized testing?
• Would the decision be based on raw scores, value-added, or some combination of both?
• Might we encounter increased teacher shortage areas, as some choose to teach subjects that aren’t tested to avoid this additional scrutiny?

Those aren’t all of my questions, to be sure. Just the ones that come to mind right off the bat. Regarding the use of test data in tenure decisions, we might ought to reconsider some of our other tenure provisions. Presently, a teacher is evaluated for tenure at the end of the third year; if tenure is not awarded, then he/she cannot be offered a contract for the following year. But, what if a new teacher shows great promise, but might need another year of coaching to get his or her scores up? Could we change that part of the law, so that a teacher who doesn’t get tenure in the third year could be retained for another year or two?

It would make more sense to me to use test data in performance evaluations, except that with teacher salaries dictated solely by education and experience, what difference do the evaluations really make? Certainly, it provides teachers with a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses, but it doesn’t make any difference in compensation, as it would in most other professions.

My feelings on this are decidedly mixed.

So, all of us with teenagers have probably hoped, at least secretly, that our kids are not engaging in the time-honored tradition of spectatorship at the submarine races… I know I have.

Never did I expect that one of mine would actually attempt to enter the race, in a vehicle intended only for dry land.

Yes, that silver Explorer darn near made it into one of the tributaries of Melton Hill Lake last Friday afternoon.

Beta, on her way to work at Big Ed’s from her apartment in Knoxville, was cruising southbound on Melton Lake Drive when she fell asleep at the wheel.

At 4 in the afternoon.  Rush hour.  She crossed a lane of oncoming traffic, just missed a row of vertical railroad ties, traveled nearly 100 feet  on the wrong side of the railroad ties along the top edge of a gully, then veered off toward the water.

She called and told me she’d fallen asleep while driving, and asked me to pick her up.  She didn’t say anything about the truck being in the lake, or anything like that… I guess I assumed that she’d been pulled over for weaving, and the officer wouldn’t let her drive.

She’s okay.  Her dog (riding in the back seat) is okay too.  The Explorer — yes, that one — is less than okay, but upon close inspection in the daylight, probably isn’t totaled.

On Friday evening after a wrecker towed it home, we thought the  frame was bent, but on closer inspection in the daylight,  it’s not.  There’s a cross-rail that is mangled, the front axle may have to be replaced, and some mounting pieces that nearly sheared off, but those are all things that can be found in a junkyard.  There’s a window busted out, the driver’s side rearview mirror sheared off, but those are replaceable.  HWTFM and I went back to the scene of the crime on Saturday, and picked up several pieces.

The kid is lucky to be alive.  It’s a wonder the truck didn’t roll.  She’s lucky she didn’t get thrown through the windshield (with no seatbelt on).  It’s only now that I can actually think about it, write about it, without shaking.

Maybe a few weeks without wheels will be a good thing.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Yes, it really is totaled. Our mechanic said it can’t be fixed.

Everyone knows a little about test phobia: the dream of showing up for class and realizing that the biggest test of the year is that day (and you didn’t study), the clutching fear of a test that you’ve studied for but fear nonetheless, the simple fear of failure.

What if you took a test, then found out after the fact that the grading scale had been dramatically changed?  That instead of needing an 69 to pass, you’d have to get an 80 — but you already turned it in?

That’s what Tennessee school systems are facing right now.  Sometime in the next few weeks, Tennessee will issue our State Report Card.  This shows, for the state as a whole, for every district, and for every school, how well our students did on the TCAP tests last April.  It also shows the TVAAS (value added) score — how much students improve from year to year, not just how well they did this year.

Last April, the test that the kids took (grades 3-8) was pretty much the same test as they’ve taken for the last decade.  What’s different is that the grading scale has changed: kids have to score higher to attain the desirable “proficient” or “advanced” designations.  With the grading scale raised, it’s almost certain that fewer kids will attain such scores, making it appear that a higher percentage of our students are something less than proficient.  If that happens, the value-added grade could actually be negative.

It will appear, on the surface, that our students’ performance has declined.  For those of us who are aware of the change in the grading scale, we’ll know to look more closely to see what happened with the raw scores, not just the grade, but my fear is that most people won’t know the difference.

Next year will be worse, as the grading scale will remain higher, but the test will be made markedly harder as well.

Neither of those things is inherently bad.  More is required of today’s students to be competitive in the world, and we’re teaching them more in preparation for that fact.   The downside is that the school system is judged annually on these scores (they have No Child Left Behind implications as well), and if the public doesn’t realize that the rules of the game changed mid-stream, then the system is subject to intense criticism.  That’s a morale-buster for the teachers, and makes it tougher to obtain the public funding for education that is required.

Every school system in Tennessee is subject to the change in the rules, so it shouldn’t have a huge impact in comparing one school (or one school system) to another.  Where the change in rules impacts the most is in making comparisons of how the same school did in 2007 to 2008 — a measure of improvement.  For the next few years, that measure will be badly flawed.

We will rise to the challenge and meet or exceed the new standards.  It just won’t happen immediately, and we all need to be prepared for that.

Having been warned,  I upgraded WordPress today (the engine that drives this site).  Because I hadn’t upgraded my “automatic upgrade” plugin either, I had to do it manually.   Meaning it took a little while, and looked funny in the process.   So, if you stopped by this afternoon and it didn’t look right, that’s why.

All done now.

PS: Delta is listening to Kansas as she does her homework in the next room… not too different from how I did my homework in high school, except that she’s better at it.

For several years, I was a proficient user of Pagemaker, having responsibility for a number of different desktop-publishing projects for clients.

I no longer do much of that for work, but still have a volunteer commitment or two that requires it.  Unfortunately, when I lost my hard drive last year, I never was able to find my PageMaker CD.  It’s an older version (6.5), but it did what I needed done.  So last year, my volunteer publications were constructed on my OLD laptop (now relegated to the youngest child).  Unfortunately, over this past Summer, it required a total reformat, so my only surviving copy of PageMaker was lost.

This week, it’s again time to put together an orchestra program… and I had no software.  I can’t justify $499 for something that I’m going to use four times per year (and donating my services at that), so I set out to see if there’s a comparable open-source package.

Scribus is it.  Although different from PageMaker, it has all the same functionality, and even seems a bit less finicky about working with imported images.  For example, PageMaker wouldn’t directly import from Photoshop (even though both are Adobe products); Scribus does.

Although it took me a little trial-and-error to figure out how to do the things that I’d learned over the years with Pagemaker, for the most part, it was a seamless transition.  If I’d had the time to actually order the manual before embarking on my first publication, it might have gone even more smoothly!

One of the attractive features of open-source software is the availability of a broad support community, rather than just a manufacturer’s site with paid support options.  There are wikis and message boards with more experienced users, so answers are just a few clicks away in most cases.

If you need to do professional-looking desktop publishing, I highly recommend Scribus.  And no one even paid me to say it (though the software was free, as it is for everyone).