Meetings, Bloody Meetings

Here I am with the bureaucrats at the Uta* State Offic* of Educatio* (you know the place I mean). Nice touch to have an engraver present, huh? This etching was done after we had spent most of an hour arguing about how to quantify "student progress".

With the exception of the tablecloth, this is quite realistic, especially my glower and knitted eyebrows. What? No I am NOT the March Hare. This is my blog, so I get to be Alice. The other participants haven't been in contact with a real student in so long, they have forgotten why they even come to work in the mornings. In presenting the formula to quantify student progress, the Mad Hatter produced a chart with an equation 5 pages long. I was like, "Couldn't we just call it progress if the student gets a higher score on the post-test than on the pre-test?"

Nooooooooo...... Then no one would get paid to come up with a five page equation. What if the student makes just one point of progress? Is it statistically significant? What if the single point of progress is the result of higher blood sugar or having got laid the night before?

I am lucky that I am invited to attend these meeting and that they have been consulting me in these matters. Better to bang my shoe in the table at a contentious meeting than to not be there. It's when your back is turned that they do this to your program.