We are asking a lot from students and teachers these days. I see kids going to college with these carefully crafted resumes. (I have to write three references this weekend). They include their community service work since the 5th grade. And they move around in their activities. Don't want to do the same community service year after year. They need two or three different sports. You have to be recognized for leadership, you know. But not enough kids were getting honors so we have created more and more honoring organizations. When I was a kid we had the Atlanta Journal Cup for the best all round graduate. This year there are four cups given at our place, including the Journal Cup. We have to have four best all round kids. Thankfully there is still only one valedictorian. When I graduated, honor grads were the top ten percent of the class. Now we have honor grads as anyone who has reached a certain GPA. Thirty three percent of our kids will be "honor" grads. And those pesky D's were messing up GPA's so we've reduced them to only one point. You have to hit 70 on the nose to get a 1.0 thrown into your transcript.

Teachers have another level of paperwork thrown on them by someone every year. Technical certification. Make sure you've had the diversity training and seen the ethics in teaching video every year. Is your portfolio in order. You must have goals for self improvement and be documenting your progress. Are you keeping record of all your parent contacts. Have you documented all your modifications for students with SST's and IEPs? Does anyone look at this stuff? Well no. But we have a warehouse full of paper if someone wants to investigate. Lesson plans turned into department heads on Mondays, reviewed and passed along to administrators. Then we must have department goals that fit in with the school improvement plan so we can show the accrediting bodies how we are improving ourselves. Unfortunately. . . it's all bunk. Busywork. Cover your a** paperwork to present in case of a law suit. It just keeps me from planning for my students. I'm a better teacher with more planning time.