James Bond, Sherlock, and the Common Core – SCN Encourager

Keep honing your “I Spy” skills.

You may need them.

For there’s yet one more troubling dimension of our nation’s pell-mell drive toward relentless standardized testing that totally caught me off guard – test security.

Of course, our student testing must always be fair and above-board, but there’s something about the new “super sleuthing” part of it all that’s a little unsettling.

I don’t know if I’m happy I read this article in The Politico on Saturday or not.

And it’s also troubling to me that I hesitated including this in today’s Encourager.

This is good info – but it’s such a downer.

Who wants to start off the week with this kind of news?

What a pickle.

I told Cindy how difficult it is to determine what to send you and when.

“What’s wrong with Monday?” she asked.

“School communicators are just beginning their crazy busy week,” I said. “They don’t need extra distractions or extra burdens on Mondays. Besides, there are often board meetings on Monday nights.”

“Well, how ’bout Friday?” she wondered.

“No,” I said. “Friday’s not a good day, either. Usually folks have worked so hard during the four previous days, they  just want to get to the weekend without getting involved in some kind of school crisis or be given a surprise project. People definitely don’t want any depressing stuff on a Friday. They just want to get home.”

“OK, then Wednesdays are best, right?” she deduced, keeping at it.

“Oh no, not Wednesdays.” I explained. “Wednesdays are always pivotal days in the life of every school communicator. A strong Wednesday makes or breaks your week. You usually know on Wednesday whether you’ll hit most of your deadlines. So, no one wants anything dragging them down on a Wednesday, trust me.”

“You should listen to yourself,” Cindy said. “With Tech Tip Tuesday and Kym writing SCN features on Thursday, I think you’re sunk. Obviously, there’s no good day for you to email any school person about anything.”

Hmmm.

Cindy’s probably right.

But maybe I should hire a cyber-sleuth of my own just to be sure.

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