The standardized tests have spoken, and here is the result:

And no, I don't teach to a test. At all.

The only disappointment is that reading wasn't as much of a spike as the other two subjects after I worked so hard at it this year. I do have qualms about the way that reading is measured on this test, though, and tons of informal evidence that my gains were much more impressive than the graph suggests.

Posted by at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I came to school and found quite a surprise: my trailer classroom, as well as another one, had been broken into the night before. The perpetrators went through the window.

They actually didn't make away with much, at least not from my trailer. The only things apparently gone were my six year old M-Tech laptop, which in its condition might have been worth $20, and about $15 cash that was in my desk. That's not a huge loss and I'm definitely not flustered over it. The thieves passed on the good ol' Pentium 1 and Pentium 2 desktop systems that I had in my room, though. Other than that, a girl who left her purse had it tossed and I cleaned it up so she didn't have to see it.

The room next to mine had nothing of value, and only had books tossed on the floor, but the other trailer did. A mini refrigerator was taken, along with a new laptop that belonged to the school.

Upon further examination, the thieves were actually somewhat smart about getting in. They severed power lines outside, which cut the alarm system. They then threw the above brick through a window to get in. This is actually somewhat ironic, since the school district just spent money installing a motion sensor last week in my trailer.

The funny and sad part about the whole thing is that the thieves actually felt bad about what they did. In the other trailer, they wrote something on the board to the extent of, "Sorry kids, but I really needed the money." They did something similar in mine, too. You can kind of see the words "So sorry" scribbled on the board.

I guess I'm not really surprised. I'm more surprised that it took this long. The trailer was broken into the year before I got here and the other trailer was broken into earlier this year. It was really only a matter of time, sadly, given the socioeconomics of Greenville.

From the Wikipedia article:

The per capita income for the city was $13,992. 29.6% of the population and 25.7% of families were below the poverty line. 38.2% of those under the age of 18 and 23.6% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

Posted by at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)