Burning with Resentment

I'm still playing games with Rotney's EA (Educational Administrator-my fancy title for his crazy relative who is the family member in charge of his education.) He again achieved a high score on this week's reading test. Next week, I'm switching to the old basal (I kept a class set when we changed adoptions)--let's see the EA come up with a copy of that assessment! Lest you think I'm just an ol' meanie, it's not that I don't want Rotney to pass. If he passed a reading test on his ability, I would be the happiest person in the building. I just don't want him to pass because he has been taught the answers but not the skills. And this knowing he can pass because EA is teaching him the answers situation has made Rotney a worse student, not a better one. He comes in with the reading workbook pages memorized and flies through them. He won't slow down to process what he's doing--he just regurgitates answers. It's maddening.

I've also decided to give a weekly reading quiz. It will have 2 short reading passages, and each passage will have 5 questions. The quizzes will test understanding of our weekly skill--next week it's discriminating between fact and opinion. This will enable me to assess Rotney (and my other students) in a non-biased way. It will also prevent skewing of grades because having that category in my gradebook and not using it is making the weekly tests more than the 40% of the total grade that they should be.

What this all means is more work for me. It also means abandoning the worksheets and centers I created specifically for our current basal and trying to reinvent the wheel in order to teach the old basal. So, yeah, I'm burning with resentment. EA has increased my workload and if I ever find the person who gave her the reading assessment book, I'm going to jerk that person bald. At the very least, I'm going to try to get her certificate.