The entire text is here. Money paragraph:

But publicly, let me state that The Wire owes no apologies — at least not for its depiction of those portions of Baltimore where we set our story, for its address of economic and political priorities and urban poverty, for its discussion of the drug war and the damage done from that misguided prohibition, or for its attention to the cover-your-ass institutional dynamic that leads, say, big-city police commissioners to perceive a fictional narrative, rather than actual, complex urban problems as a cause for righteous concern. As citizens using a fictional narrative as a means of arguing different priorities or policies, those who created and worked on The Wire have dissented.

In the suburban big box book-store and alongside the sprawling teen fiction section is a bigger section called Teen Paranormal Romance. Cool. I get it, Twilight and all. But next to the Teen Paranormal Romance section is the even bigger NEW Teen Paranormal Romance section. Wow.

Clearly writing a historical monograph was the wrong career choice.

Walked to DRL at 6:50 and home by 11. Some thoughts on the process, with no specifics because I’m as afraid of ETS as Bill Simmons is of David Stern…they will find me and end my career.

*Finished in ninety minutes
*Had 3 questions (out of 120) that I had no clue about. Any of the four answers could have worked.
*Had 18 questions that I felt I could get to two answers to make a reasonable guess.
*Had no trouble at all with any of the straight literature questions, i.e., who wrote this novel? Without sounding too arrogant, some of these questions were of the if-you-don’t-know-this-you-shouldn’t-be-a-teacher variety.
*Felt pretty confident about much of the exam as it was more of an advanced reading comprehension test than anything else. There were a few questions that alluded to the cluster of English teacher words that I had no chance at.

The qualifying score for English is 160 (the highest of any of the secondary cut scores, which was reflected in the number of folks taking the exam and the huge number of applicants for any position). If I got all 21 questions wrong, that’s 82.5%. The cut score is 160 out of a possible 190, which is 84%. So I’ll be okay unless the questions I messed up were all in a particular area (making these percentages irrelevant anyway).


I guess the larger philosophical question is whether such an exam predicts anything about my ability to be a secondary English teacher and whether it’s an effective test. It is somewhat surprising that there’s no written component — shouldn’t someone charged with teaching writing be able to construct an effective essay in thirty minutes — but I did feel as though the exam walked a balance between straight ahead content and effectively judging whether you could quickly puzzle out the text. No teacher has total command of all topics but the best teachers quickly can figure out what they need to know, and this test wasn’t a bad judge of that particular skill.

As a historian, there were definitely points where I was straining over questions that I bet a thoughtful undergrad, who’d just completed an English major, would have blasted right through, mostly because portions were straight up vocabulary tests. I guess you could argue that I was “gaming” the process in some ways but I’m not the one who set it up this way and I’m clearly following the rules, so if I can pass (and find a $100 money order and fill out the paperwork) the cert will be on its way.

Tomorrow I take the praxis II in English Language, Literature, Composition: Content Knowledge. At 42 years old. Hmmm…my son already has a page full of test scores in his schoolnet account (at six and a half). Here’s a list of ALL the tests I can remember taking:

7th grade
An IQ test for my mom’s friend who was studying to be a psychologist.

8th grade
*The SSAT
*the PSAT
*some vocational test that indicated I probably shouldn’t be an engineer

11th grade
*the SAT (twice)

Early 20s
the GREs (once)

Late 20s
The PPST (praxis one)
The Social Studies Praxis (Praxis II)

I think I also took another standardized test because I thought I was getting certified in another state, but I couldn’t find the records. No lasting harm, done, I suppose. I’m just not sure I can sit still for two hours. I’m confident in my pedagogical knowledge and in my knowledge and understanding of literature but I’m betting there’s going to be three to five English teacher questions that I’ll have no clue about (is this a simile or a metaphor).

As I’ve noted in the past, the school district is about a hundred times more efficient than they used to be. Today I began the process of re-applying for a position but it’s a funky system. You fill out a survey — dubious about the security on the system — and then talent acquisition gets back to you. (Confirmation #17751) They’re pretty clear that they’re only responding to areas of high need: Music – Vocal only, Program Specialist (ESL), Mathematics, Science, Special Education (Autistic Support and Emotional Support), World Languages – Spanish, Chinese and French. I doubt that I’ll hear anything but I figured it was worth initiating the process. What I probably should do is call talent acquisition and see if I can return to my old position or if they have an easy way to re-enter the district.

Update: well, I called and was told that I should fill out the survey and wait for the school district to get in touch with me. We’ll see.

So on December 27th, twenty-one days after they’d received the form, the state declared me certified on level two. I think this means that my teaching certificate will no longer expire. I’m not sure what else it entails. Onto the English praxis.

I like reading Matt Taibbi. I actually signed up for a subscription to Rolling Stone based on his reporting. I haven’t read his new book but in reading a review (here) I came across the following excerpt:

Political power is simply taken from most of us by a grubby kind of fiat, in little fractions of a percent here and there each and every day, through a thousand separate transactions that take place in fine print and in the margins of a vast social mechanism that most of us are simply not conscious of.

I’d love to read this quote at the beginning of a class to see what students would make of it. I’d want students to argue whether it’s true or false, to gather what evidence they could on either side. I’d like to ask them how the meaning of this quote shifts if the author is an editor at a left-leaning popular magazine or a right-wing radio host: why could either persona have made this statement? I’d like the students to try and contextualize this quote — is it only true or relevant in today’s world or has it always been true?

The first thing I did this morning was to call the state certification office to make sure that taking the praxis (0041) would be all I needed to do in order to add a Secondary English certification. I waited twelve minutes for a thirty second call to confirm that a passing score (160) and the state paperwork were all that was necessary.

Then I created an ETS account and registered for the exam. Seventeen minutes from start to finish, although I think this might have been a browser issue on my end (fussy chrome extensions). And my credit card is $130 lighter. It is kind of amazing that every teacher in Pennsylvania has to pony up money directly to ETS if they want a certification. Why haven’t individual states gotten into this business? There’s overhead to start but it’d be a license to print money and you’d have total control over the process.

Generally I avoid the Inqy/DN comments as they’re usually full of insults and invective. However, this comment struck me as funny, scary, and ultimately sad:

The Generic Philly Problem: Politicians espouse great concern about problem. Not-for-profit organizations hold events to shed light on problem. Administrators of questionable competence and motives feign interest in solving problem. Lawyers get involved. Boatloads of public & private funds are dispensed with reckless abandon to all of the above. Problem solved. Philly Style!

I can see in the state database that my application for level two certification has been received as it’s now labeled “Assigned/On Hand” in the database. Once this clears, I’m hoping to take the Praxis II exam — 0041 — so that I can apply for Secondary English certification.

I think or at least I hope that it’s still true that anyone who holds level one certification in any area can take the praxis test and apply for certification in another area. I took the practice test and got 22 out of 24 correct, so I’m not worried about the test as much as finding the $130.00 necessary to pay for the exam. And it’s only written so I can’t take it via computer.