WMST Scandal & Maggots
So, I'm sure that you are really curious about my title. I want to talk about the serious one first and then the second part is not serious, just totally disgusting. Let's go.
My professor for one of my classes works at a charter school in DC. It's called WMST. She taught AP World and also was the staff development person for the school. She worked closely with the principal and the a few others on the administration staff. This year they just learned that they did not make AYP. For those of you that don't know, AYP stands for "Adequate Yearly Progress", it's a sister acronym of the No Child Left Behind Act. Basically is consists of meeting proficiency tests in both Math and Reading. Not only did they not make it but their scores dropped by 60% in Math and 40% in Reading. WHAT? How is this possible? Also note that the past 7 years that AYP has even been in existence, they passed, so their benchmark of proficiency was really high. This past year they improved 8% in math and 5% in Reading. They were on their way to improve. My professor and the principal were dedicating to improving the school and really getting them out of this whole. If you think that there is some test number fudging....read on. I mean, how can students drop scores by 60%? No teachers changes were made, it was the same teachers teaching the kids! Read on...
What really happened was that Pearson Vue, you know, the testing company, had sent a report to the DC Governing Education Body (OSSE) letting them know that WMST tests had a SIGNIFICANT amount of eraser marks on their tests. Normal range is like 3-4%. They had 14%. WTF. OSSE also told the Board of Trustees of the Charter and they did NOTHING. In fact, the report was pretty private that my professor just found out about it. Someone at WMST was doctoring the tests so that they would make AYP. But, since it was only the first year that both the principal and my professor were at the school, it makes it look like since they took over, the test scores dropped.
Both of them were FIRED, along with one other admin person. The person who most likely fudged the scores is now the new principal. They were escorted out of the school building by fucking cops. It is insane. It's such a fucked up system. Oh, and the board now realizes that they made a mistake in firing them since school is opening in three weeks so they are trying to negotiate some sort of transition package for them. How fucked up is this? This is like some Erin Brockovitch shit. Tell everyone you know how insane this is!
Ok, last week there was a crazy storm here and my parents lost power for quite a few days. I did too, but for less than 24 hours. It was annoying, but I obviously survived. My mom was freaking out about how she was nervous about all the food that was in the freezer. I told her since I have an extra freezer I would store it until the power came back on. The problem was that we had a bunch of old nasty shit in there, like old hamburgers and meat and hotdogs - all expired. I used this as an excuse to throw it all out.
Fast forward until this morning when I'm taking out the trash. I open up the bin to throw away another bag of trash and there ARE MAGGOTS ALL OVER THE BAG. THEY ARE CRAWLING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND IT SMELLS LIKE DEATH. After about five minutes of straight dry heaving. I finally was able to drag the bin to the street. I swear I almost wrote and apology note to the trash people. I also almost wrote another note that said, "just throw away the whole trash can". So I drove to school all while trying not to visualize those disgusting maggots. Sorry if all of you now have a visual image of the situation. After school I was so scared of the bin. I opened it with a stick and then dumped massive amounts of bleach into it and ran away leaving the lid still open. There were still some maggots left at the bottom but I totally murdered them. I will spray the shit out of it later on when my stomach has settled down. Any suggestions?
Lesson of the day: don't throw away pounds of raw meet in the trash during the summer and expect there to be no consequences.
Ok, must get back to all the crazy paper writing!
Love,
SL
My professor for one of my classes works at a charter school in DC. It's called WMST. She taught AP World and also was the staff development person for the school. She worked closely with the principal and the a few others on the administration staff. This year they just learned that they did not make AYP. For those of you that don't know, AYP stands for "Adequate Yearly Progress", it's a sister acronym of the No Child Left Behind Act. Basically is consists of meeting proficiency tests in both Math and Reading. Not only did they not make it but their scores dropped by 60% in Math and 40% in Reading. WHAT? How is this possible? Also note that the past 7 years that AYP has even been in existence, they passed, so their benchmark of proficiency was really high. This past year they improved 8% in math and 5% in Reading. They were on their way to improve. My professor and the principal were dedicating to improving the school and really getting them out of this whole. If you think that there is some test number fudging....read on. I mean, how can students drop scores by 60%? No teachers changes were made, it was the same teachers teaching the kids! Read on...
What really happened was that Pearson Vue, you know, the testing company, had sent a report to the DC Governing Education Body (OSSE) letting them know that WMST tests had a SIGNIFICANT amount of eraser marks on their tests. Normal range is like 3-4%. They had 14%. WTF. OSSE also told the Board of Trustees of the Charter and they did NOTHING. In fact, the report was pretty private that my professor just found out about it. Someone at WMST was doctoring the tests so that they would make AYP. But, since it was only the first year that both the principal and my professor were at the school, it makes it look like since they took over, the test scores dropped.
Both of them were FIRED, along with one other admin person. The person who most likely fudged the scores is now the new principal. They were escorted out of the school building by fucking cops. It is insane. It's such a fucked up system. Oh, and the board now realizes that they made a mistake in firing them since school is opening in three weeks so they are trying to negotiate some sort of transition package for them. How fucked up is this? This is like some Erin Brockovitch shit. Tell everyone you know how insane this is!
Ok, last week there was a crazy storm here and my parents lost power for quite a few days. I did too, but for less than 24 hours. It was annoying, but I obviously survived. My mom was freaking out about how she was nervous about all the food that was in the freezer. I told her since I have an extra freezer I would store it until the power came back on. The problem was that we had a bunch of old nasty shit in there, like old hamburgers and meat and hotdogs - all expired. I used this as an excuse to throw it all out.
Fast forward until this morning when I'm taking out the trash. I open up the bin to throw away another bag of trash and there ARE MAGGOTS ALL OVER THE BAG. THEY ARE CRAWLING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND IT SMELLS LIKE DEATH. After about five minutes of straight dry heaving. I finally was able to drag the bin to the street. I swear I almost wrote and apology note to the trash people. I also almost wrote another note that said, "just throw away the whole trash can". So I drove to school all while trying not to visualize those disgusting maggots. Sorry if all of you now have a visual image of the situation. After school I was so scared of the bin. I opened it with a stick and then dumped massive amounts of bleach into it and ran away leaving the lid still open. There were still some maggots left at the bottom but I totally murdered them. I will spray the shit out of it later on when my stomach has settled down. Any suggestions?
Lesson of the day: don't throw away pounds of raw meet in the trash during the summer and expect there to be no consequences.
Ok, must get back to all the crazy paper writing!
Love,
SL
posted by Simply Lauren. @ 3:45 PM
1 Comments:
At Friday, August 06, 2010,
Jessica said…
1. Gross.
2. I could totally see you opening said trash can with a stick. Hilarious.
3. I had so much fun last night!
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