Days like today

... really make me wonder what our country is going to be like in 15 years. As you know, I'm teaching summer school SSI - which is for those students that have failed the TAKS test for 2 administrations. The only thing I have learned from this experience is that our nation needs to develop a fully standardized curriculum or set of objectives to be mastered by each child across the country. And we should not promote kids based on size or development, it needs to be based on knowledge levels. I have 8th graders that do not know what the perimeter is -- or how to add, or how to subtract, or how to divide, multiply - what the area is, what a square is, what is a circle... How can we expect them to master 8th grade topics when they don't know 3rd grade topics? I have never been this frustrated in the classroom before - AUGH I'm moving to China or Japan where the kids HAVE TO LEARN!