{"id":316,"date":"2009-01-18T20:41:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T01:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=316"},"modified":"2020-07-25T19:00:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T00:00:19","slug":"just-wonderin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=316","title":{"rendered":"Just Wonderin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Whenever we took our kids out of school for a family educational activity we made sure to alert their teachers out of a sense of courtesy. We indicated that we would hold our children responsible for any work they may miss during their absence – even if we were going to Colonial Williamsburg or to visit the White House, museums and monuments of our nation’s capitol.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, most teachers responded to our overture by assigning more homework than the kids had ever seen. Apparently, instruction is extra-productive in your absence.<\/p>\n

It seemed as if every day of absence was rewarded with thirteen days worth of busywork. If the trip involved travel, the teachers made sure to assign pages 12, 49, 112-119, 347 and 414 in each of four heavy textbooks per kid, in addition to a mountain of worksheets. My kids were rarely if ever invited to share their recollections or even travel journals with their classmates upon their return to class. “School” treated these learning adventures as if visiting museums, plays, concerts, monuments and exploring different places were the enemy of education. Perhaps because it interfered with “time-on-task.”<\/p>\n

OK, I know it’s unfair to generalize from my experience with three children representing 39 years of K-12 attendance. That may be a statistically insignificant sample.<\/p>\n

It’s possible Malia and Sasha will be too tired to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. The jam-packed days leading up to the inauguration include a Lincoln-inspired train ride from Philadelphia on Saturday, a Lincoln Memorial Concert featuring Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce on Sunday and community service projects to mark Martin Luther King Day on Monday.<\/p>\n

If that weren’t exhausting enough, the girls are expected to join their parents Monday night for a concert featuring Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, the girls’ two favorite musical acts…(source<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can’t help but wonder if Sasha and Malia Obama will be welcomed back to their new school with a punitive pile of worksheets. Did they have to schlep their backpack full of Houghton-Mifflin with them on the historic train journey from Philadelphia to Washington D.C? Will they need to use all of their vocabulary words in TWO sentences this week? While they are meeting world leaders and the most talented people on earth will they may miss the weekly D.A.R.E. sermon?<\/p>\n

Will all of this frivolity and unexcused absenteeism hurt their standardized test scores and jeopardize their school’s Annual Yearly Progress (AYP)?<\/p>\n

Of course not. The Obamas were clever (and wealthy) enough to send their children to a school<\/a> unencumbered by such bullsh#*t.<\/p>\n

Welcome to Washington Obama Family! Thank you for your service and sacrifice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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