best laid plans

Our school, I mean, our state, Oregon, satisfies NCLB requirements with an online test called TESA.

If the kids go to TESA, as of last week, this is what they found.

There is a message:

On January 23, 2007, Vantage Learning terminated its contract with the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) because of ODE's failure to pay for past and continued TESA service. Since then, Vantage has continued the TESA service - administering more than 250,000 assessments over and above the contracted amount - in a good-faith effort to help the teachers and students of Oregon...

Go there and read this yourself, they even put a link to a DHL delivery confirmation of termination notice.

Here is the OPB story which aired on Monday March 12 wherein ODE discusses what has happened.

Last week I forwarded J the email from Oregon Department of Education that said there were "vendor issues" and the online tests would end for this year and resume when pencil and paper tests could be gotten out by May.

What is happening is of course the case of "two sides to every story".

The vendor, Vantage Learning, who has created the system that we have been using for the past several years, said there was a contractual issue once they found out that the project would have to go out for Request for Proposal and that they wouldn't automatically be granted the contract renewal. This is a State of Oregon thing that is done to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent in a way that looks closely for the most competitive bidder.

Once Vantage learned they would have to bid again for the same job, the state received invoices in the 7 figures. After that the TESA system began to falter all over the state. When ODE called them about this, they mentioned there were also contractual issues that needed to be resolved.

And when ODE didn't pay up the crazy invoices , TESA limped along in a faulty manner for a month and last week crashed for good. Now the place where all kids used to go to take tests says in so many words "Oregon didn't pay so there are no tests".

So what is at stake here is our compliance with NCLB, a whole LOT of classtime that has been lost, and a huge precedent--here we farmed this out to a private technology vendor and it has resulted rather poorly. Can Vantage do this? I am curious to see how this resolves.

Our school, which covers about 5 blocks square (its enormous) reorganized our whole campus in order to comply with TESA testing. From where I stand, the testing is a burden, though it is necessary. It has been frustrating because getting the technology to test 3000 students in several different areas and still be able to use our computers for learning has been a rather complex knot. Getting absent kids tested, makeups, computer glitches all conspire to make the process less than easy.

My students, recently arrived from other countries, are so overwhelmed by the reading test that even the "A" students click through it and are done with the 70 some odd questions in 15 minutes. This is NCLB.

I wonder about a lawsuit regarding the details of the contract and I predict doom for Vantage Learning, I seriously doubt a judge would rule in favor of the action they took. I think Vantage thought they had Oregon by the short hairs and could pull this off, but it just doesn't work that way. Vantage Learning can't have done anything good to their reputation in this move--what educational facility would want to farm work out to a company that thinks blackmail is a suitable business model?

Woe, WOE to Vantage.

In other news I have an interview at a tiny little school. I visited the place where A will do daycare today and it depressed me to put her in daycare (only 12 times she will have to go between now and summer, but still, every kid had some malady--facial rash, snotty nose, coughing everywhere...) .

I am adjusting all over the place. I never say no to adjusting, but I call it quits when things don't work out. After this daycare thing today I think that maybe part time would be just fine...only problem is there are precious few part time jobs out there...

Twee

We live in Oregon, Christmas Tree land. Feast eyes, all those in balmy climes.

This was my first shooting experience with a real camera. A Canon EOS Digital Rebel. I am reading the manual and another book about getting better shots, actually getting better control of the camera. So this is my first time out. They could be worse, I suppose.


Surveying here. Scenes like this make me love Oregon.


I like this one even though it is a total bonehead shot. Er, what am I supposed to focus on? This camera is so fully automated, it is kind of like a hopped up point and shoot. This pic is the result of wanting to get shots, but not getting all my details squared, like turning off the AF.


I took about a hundred shots, mostly just to get the hang of the camera. I am still a little blown away by the difference between my previous camera and this one--the file size on the Kodak is about 800kb, this one a file size is 4.5 MB. It makes me sad to think of the time wasted on the Kodak, and the price of it...and the juice that dripped on it, and the sand that got in it, and the time wasted and the money wasted...


Back to the trees, while Jeff cut our tree that I picked out, I played. I admit, I walked away from this experience thinking "I have so much to learn,".


This is the tree in our living room, it is not decorated, it is just hanging out smelling good. I think this one could benefit from some Photoshop time.

I haven't purchased this camera, it is on loan to me from Jeff's work. I think it goes back tommorrow. I would post more pictures, except they take forever to upload. It is equipped for fast transfer of images, but my computer doesn't have a port for this. The camera is 600 dollar camera. The computer, well. This just looks like a hobby I probably cannot afford. Too bad!

Looking back: Places I have lived

I live in Portland, OR. In the past 15 years I have lived all over this town.

Once I lived in a townhouse near campus with a young Asian chef and another Asian fella, my buddy S., an architect, who decided to never speak to me again after he found out I wasn't going to date him. At one point they both moved out so I had to find 2 new roomies. I had one cousin of my sister in law and we found another. She was 19 and would be sweet as could be except for once a month (gee what could it have been?) when she would turn in to a raving bee-yotch. She was pretty, blonde, young and athletic. And one night she decided to threaten to kick my arse if I didn't give her her rent money back so she could go buy a pair of Sorels. Wait, it gets better...the COPS came because she was knocking stuff over in my room and pushing me around and D. got scared (not me of course ha! I have all that mud wrestling experience behind me so I was oh so confident READ: I almost peed my pants--not quite but I was a little wierded out) So the cops come and tell the crazed roommate to move out, which she did that night and needed us to give her money for gas to do so. She said so many nice things to us while she moved out.

In the same place, there was a man who lived next door. Every morning about 8 AM while he was in the shower he would verbally denigrate himself while he bathed. "YOU JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET YOUR S@#T TOGETHER! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? YOU ARE FOOLISH AND WORTHLESS!!" and that would go on for about 15 min a day every am, at the top of his lungs. It was kind of a bummer way to wake up, if it wasn't so bizarre.

In another place downtown Portland I was apartment sitting for like 2 months (long story there) in this terribly sketchy place in el centro. Taking my trash out at 3 am there would be these punk rock dudes in the elevator with knives, playing with the sharp edges, me with my bag of kitty litter to take to the dumpster just annoyed as all heck that they were just so odd in countenance. Never really occurred to me that I coulda been in genuine danger. Hm.

In Corvallis doing my teaching stuff, I moved in practically without knowing anything about this one house because the loser advisor in the office told me literally 2 weeks beore class started that it was starting. In those 2 weeks I had to quit my job, sever portland responsibilities, pack everything I owned and move an hour and a half away. I had precisely 2 days to find an apartment, a cheap one at that...I was broke. This place was 210 a month, huge, private and very close to campus. Little did I know that all our utilities would be turned off because the roommates refused to pay, there were daily potsmoking sessions, and just before I left a new roommate had been told he could move in (without any consultation on my part because I was rarely home) and proceeded to sell big bags of green organic stuff from the house and empty out the bar into his bedroom, where they had a really great time at 230 am, and me right next to him have to get up at 5 am. Oh I was so glad to be there. I thought I had died and gone to hell.


It was not without its moments...me kicking people off my couch who were watching south park and and smoking dubbage because my parents were due to arrive, trying to explain to a fellow student teacher why there were beer bottles all over our living room whenever he stopped by to see me but I wasn't there..."I just sleep there...honestly, I am never there because it kinda sucks" (he mr. milk toasty church boy who probably could remember the last sin he committed) not that it is important, but going in renting there my thought was "Well as long as they don't just sit around and smoke pot all the time and they pay their bills, I don't care, I will never be home" Why didn't I move? With what time and what money? Besides, after one extremely stressful year, it was all over.

And this is to say nothing about the roommates who dragged out the crucifix with cowbones nailed to it and placed on our porch (it was art), and when my small voice registered some level of displeasure with this, I was painted as a big ugly fundamentalist kook

Nor to mention the crazy house where after we decided to have a swing dancing party, one roommate (a marine rotc guy) nailed his bedroom door shut with him inside because he was wierded out by all my russian and spanish speaking friends. And the other roommates took his side and I had to send my friends home. (??) Had no previous inkling they were racist, promptly moved out.

Yes I moved out of all these places in short order.

But there were cool places too...the large gorgeous old house with all the architects with the snooker table and the bands that played in the living room...the house with the deck with the mannequin on it where we could sit out and watch the people from the pub all stumble over the same buckle in the sidewalk.

Okay nostalgia moment about the bad old days is over, I will resume to our irregularly programmed schedule.