{"id":1477,"date":"2010-09-28T17:25:27","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T22:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=1477"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:59:45","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:59:45","slug":"one-proud-uncle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=1477","title":{"rendered":"One Proud Uncle"},"content":{"rendered":"

My nephew Mathew is a terrific 13 year-old with lots of interests and much to my chagrin, he loves school. In fact, he has never missed a day of school despite schools undeserving of his loyalty. He lives in NJ and is a good student.<\/p>\n

I just received the following unsolicited email from Mathew. I haven’t spoken with him in several months due to travel and anyone with children will understand how difficult it is to get a kid to correspond via email. That’s what makes the passion of his email message a delightful surprise that is at once heartwarming and heart-breaking.<\/p>\n

I have not touched a character in Mathew’s message to me. He gave me permission to publish it. Feel free to share your love in via comments below.<\/p>\n

(Note: The NJ ASK is the NJ New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\n

TOO FAR<\/p>\n

by Mathew M.<\/p>\n

The charming governer of New Jersey has just launched some new laws regarding education. From what I heard, he is paying teachers based on how well kids do on the NJ ASK. What?! I don’t know if Christie knows this, but the teachers already feed us this garbage so we do well on the test. Now that it affects their pay, we will learn NOTHING but the junk for the test. Nothing. What happened to education? This is not education. The only education we are getting is how to take a standardized test. Does the government honestly believe that standardized tests will get us into Harvard or Yale? That we will become the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? What about the special-education teachers? Will they get payed less because their students are bound to flunk the NJ ASK? Something needs to be done about this. This goes right to Washington. We NEED to get rid of standardized tests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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