Das Kindergarten: or, high Marx for area tykes

Before you get too excited about expanding school choice, be warned: raving ideologues lurk in private schools, too.

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."

So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the students shared the teachers' anathema to private property ownership. "If I buy it, I own it," one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of several months.

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes."

Reminds me of my own kindergarten, Lego, and property story: as a lad, I was quite taken with some nifty Lego accessories that were stored in a giant tub in a corner of class. I figured I could sneak a few home, and no one would ever know.

At home, as I was building a Lego house, installing a Lego sink and miniature Lego faucets, my dad wandered over to see what I was building. "Hey, what are these pieces?" he asked, suspicious. I figured the jig was up, and burst out crying. "They belong to teacher," I blubbered. (How did he know? They were cool, limited edition pieces, and we were poor. It's all obvious in retrospect.)

That afternoon I had to return the little Lego sinks and faucets, sniffling in shame as my kindergarten teacher looked on in what was probably amusement. And so ended my life of crime.

Update: The Onion, as always, provides the reality check.

teacher, may I be excused from the WASL?

I have to barf.

Some errors apparently were accidental, such as useful posters hanging in classrooms, providing the wrong kind of pencils and teachers who misread test directions or had students start the wrong sections at the wrong time.

Irregularities also included fire alarms, nosebleeds and other illnesses. A booklet from Eatonville was returned to the testing company in a plastic bag because a student had vomited on it.

I've always thought proctoring the WASL is as dull as watching public television. Maybe not.

Some tests were invalidated due to teacher idiocy and student mischief:

An Everett teacher gave students definitions of acute and obtuse angles and how many meters are in a kilometer.

"This departure from test protocol destroys the validity of these four test items and significantly impacts the credibility of the score results for these students," Paul Dugger, the state assessment coordinator, wrote in a report. OSPI invalidated the tests. A complaint against the teacher is still being investigated....

A Lakewood High School 10th grader got in trouble for using his cell phone during the test to send a text message after finishing his exam and turning it in. Another student had his test recommended for invalidation because he received a text message.

800 pages of issues, in sum. Makes you wonder how many anomalies go unreported when the pressure's on.