Personal and Confidential to OSPI

You know the "strong passwords" that you require to access the EDS portal? They're ass. They're absolute ass. They're not protecting anything--the only thing passwords with 5 different requirements do is cause the end user to click the ol' "Did you forget your password?" button and have a temporary password sent.

Electronic recertification is a good thing, but cripes do you ever do it in the worst way possible.

Your friend,

Ryan

Read more here, if any.

A Small Bit of Advice for the Rob McKenna Campaign

When you go around saying that it's a shame that Washington placed so low in the Race to the Top competition, the statement assumes that Race to the Top was worth winning. When you say Yes to RttT, you're also saying yes to:

--Giving away state control of the curriculum
--Creating a reliance on impermanent federal dollars
--Embracing reform models that are anything but proven to work

If Rob McKenna thinks that Race to the Top is the model to go off of, he's a far distance away from someone we want leading the schools.

Read more here, if any.

If This Meets Your Definition of "It's Working!", Then We Define Working in Completely Different Ways

So the Freedom Foundation has an interview posted that they did with a teacher over in Pennsylvania who teachers on-line kindergarten. No, seriously--kindergarten over the computer. This is a thing.

It's a nice enough interview, sure, but is the program that houses this on-line kindergarten worth a damn? Judging by the test scores, not so much: in 20 tested areas, they were below the state average every single time.

If this is the reinvention of public education, we're all screwed.

Read more here, if any.