Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jog

For the last week I've been in St. Louis on a Federally-funded panel set up to review writing samples of 8th and 12th grade students. Our job, after two full days of training, was to establish the "cut scores" that divide the three levels of achievement.

I'm a better person today than I was last week. I, and 59 other panelists, worked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day for 4 days, and a half day on Saturday, before shipping out for our home states. I've never been so exhausted, and was reminded how lucky I am to be "retired."

If you are interested in looking at what I was doing here's the website. Seventy percent of the panelists were teachers representing nearly every state in the union--including Hawaii and Alaska. Thirty percent of us were "general public," but of those panelists, nearly all of us were writers, and predominately middle grade and young adults novelists.

 

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

I'm going to spend a few days paying bills, and clearing my emails, then I'll be back to looking for interesting issues to share, or wonderful animal stories. Meanwhile, a little self-promotion. This is the most wonderful review of Hurt Go Happy I think I've ever read. It brought me to tears.


 http://www.books4yourkids.com/2012/02/hurt-go-happy-by-ginny-rorby-256-pp-rl.html