Life is a Job

From the New York Times,  Our Mommy Problem., by a woman who objects to random adults addressing her as "Mom".   As usual, the comments are more interesting than the article. I was struck by this one:

Bismarck North Dakota

I am a Mom but also sooooooo much more - runner, spouse, head of a department at a Fortune 500 company, motherhood does not define me. I'm not up to my eyeballs in my kids stuff. I monitor their grades, their work and occasionally turn up at their athletic, dance and orchestra events. They are building their own lives with my and their Dad's support. The author hit the right tone - something has to change and it starts with us. We can take the conversation back and redefine ourselves as a mom, not as "Mom". This is the first salvo - thank you.

For this commenter, motherhood is a low-level managerial job. The mother's responsibility is to monitor her kids' performance and ensure that it's up to snuff. If their assessments are high, she's managed them well.

I see a lot of this where I live. The corporate paradigm is the filter through which we see the rest of life. School is a job for kids, which prepares them for adult jobs by forcing them to be show up on time, put in their hours (plus extensive overtime!), and get their paperwork filled out correctly and submitted to the appropriate supervisor. The kid who performs well at school is rewarded with a credential which will eventually result in a well-paid adult job.

In my high-achieving professional-class district, we have "good schools", which means that a lot of our kids go on to competitive colleges and high-salary jobs. Are the kids knowledgeable in real subjects, like math and history? Can they write clearly and intelligently? Are they happy? Do they have friends? Do they have a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives? Who the hell cares? All we need to know is the name of the highest-ranked college they got into and we know where they stand.

Rich Parents Game the System

In the NYTimes, No Rich Child Left Behind.

The article's point, that rich kids have a huge advantage in college applications, is no surprise. The author is, however, clueless as to the cause.  From the article:

The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students.

Well, no.  The academic gap goes way beyond kindergarten.  I live in an affluent area, and what I see is an entire industry geared toward coaching and packaging rich kids to produce good-looking college applications.  Rich kids spend hours with tutors to learn how to write exactly the kind of essay that will score well on the SAT essay section.  They take exactly the kinds of extracurriculars that colleges want to see.  They are coached through every step in the application process.

There's an ongoing myth that rich kids succeed because their parents read them plenty of bedtime stories, teach them a good work ethic, and demonstrate commitment through a stable marriage.   Pshaw!  I say.  Any of those factors might be important, but it's just the beginning of how rich parents push their kids to succeed.

What really toasts my biscuits is the assertion that rich kids get ahead because they're genetically superior, as shown by their high IQs.  Are you kidding me?  These kids are coached for the IQ test!  That's how the gifted program in New York City works.

From the comments (as usual, better than the article):

from AlexJr60 of New York, NY:

Interesting article, but the writer's research obviously didn't include face-to-face interviews with parents of kids in elite private schools in New York and environs. The kids are programmed from dawn to dusk with every conceivable extracurricular coaching that could help them develop the faintest wisp of a talent of any kind. "Quiet Time" is a non-starter. They are trained to compete from the time they are toddlers; they are exposed to bright highly competitive classmates in school and camp and arts courses and language courses and on and on and on. Most of the parents start them on SAT-prep in the tenth grade. The really top preparation coaches earn as much as the kids' shrinks. The $165,000 income level cited, doesn't even come close to what is spent -- closer to that pretax, is the annual tab for a single kid in a private NYC school who goes to summer camp and has the usual lineup of extra help.

from Minerva19 of Rockland:

We have had an SAT prep program open up in our community. It was not until we enrolled our son that I realized just what an advantage the wealthy have. It didn't teach more math or critical thinking. It taught him how to game the test, when to guess, when not to, how to approach each section. He was able to raise his scores 100 points.

 from Lois Kuster of Lynbrook, NY:

One critical factor that increases the standardized test results of wealthy children is outside tutoring. This is not tracked in studies. Private tutoring starts in the early years of school and continues throughout high school. 

and a reply from Eric B. of Oxnard, CA:

Your post is much too kind. "Private tutoring", which evokes images of young people sitting at home with a tutor, studying subjects in general, very often amounts to joining prep courses offered (at high fees) by groups who have discovered what questions will be on entrance tests and asked in interviews, so the three- and four-year-old children of those who can afford these prep courses can jump ahead of other children. Those of us in the lower classes call this cheating. The rich call us resentful of our betters.

 from lizzie848 of nyc:

I live in Manhattan and work with students on their college application essays. I happen to have a sliding scale and work with kids at all income levels, but the affluent students I work with all have SAT tutors, even the very very brightest of them, and their parents are willing to spend upwards of $300 an hour - and sometimes - so I have heard - $1000 an hour - for this kind of tutoring. I heard of one family whose tutor came to the Southampton summer house to work with the child, and was paid $1000 an hour for all of his time there. I heard of one family that spent $250,000 on tutoring for their child over high school.

from Sharon of Leawood, KS:

So if a wealthy family hires a tutor to ensure their child does well on the SAT, how is that demonstrative of a "love of learning and study"? It's demonstrative of an attitude that success must come at any cost. 

from dclambert in NJ:

As a teacher in an inner city school & a private SAT tutor of the wealthy, I see this phenomenon on the ground.

Wealthy families spend a fortune on their children's education & support in ways that would probably shock the middle class.They have tutors for each subject, hw coaches, etc. They invest at least one year in SAT preparation.

The "meritocracy" is a scam.

Learning to Take Tests

Two recent articles in the NYTimes caught my eye:

After Number of Gifted Soars, a Fight for Kindergarten Slots

and A New Kind of Tutoring Aims to Make Students Smarter.

The first article reports that nearly 5,000 children qualified as "gifted" in New York City this fall, more than double the number only 4 years ago.  It is now routine to prep 4-year-olds for the tests that bring this coveted label.

The second article reports on a booming new tutoring scheme, that aims to raise kids' performance on IQ tests. 

This is what education has become in our country.  It's all test prep, all the time.  It's not about inquiry or experiment or developing real interests or even about learning any particular subject matter.  It's about getting a good score on the test.  What the test measures is hardly even discussed; once a test is out there, the race is on for a good score.  

Education has become a kind of sport.  It's all about competition; sorting winners from losers.

Anyone who truly cares about learning is out of luck. 

Parents and Kids

From the late, great George Carlin.  CAUTION -- adult language!

Drugged Children

In the New York Times today, a disturbing look at the use of ADHD meds to boost the performance of struggling students.

Quintn began taking Adderall for A.D.H.D. about five years ago, when his disruptive school behavior led to calls home and in-school suspensions. He immediately settled down and became a more earnest, attentive student — a little bit more like Perry, who also took Adderall for his A.D.H.D.

When puberty’s chemical maelstrom began at about 10, though, Quintn got into fights at school because, he said, other children were insulting his mother. The problem was, they were not; Quintn was seeing people and hearing voices that were not there, a rare but recognized side effect of Adderall. After Quintn admitted to being suicidal, Dr. Anderson prescribed a week in a local psychiatric hospital, and a switch to Risperdal.

Words fail me.

Word Poverty

In the New York Times, an interesting look at "word poverty", and how it influences the all-important test scores.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Aargh! We're less than a week into the school year, and already having homework headaches. The really unforgivable part is that it's with 3d-grade Younger Daughter. Why is she being assigned homework at all?

First she had a math worksheet that took 10 minutes for us to fight about (culminating in my swearing like a sailor with a head injury) and 2 minutes for her to fill out. Then she's got a sheet in her homework folder that looks like this:

National GRANDPARENTS DAY

Sample Questions for 'Interviewing' Your Grandparents

Where were you born? What year?

What are the names and birthdates of your brothers and sisters?

Did you have a pet when you were growing up?

Did you get an allowance?

Who was more strict, your mom or dad?

What were your favorite games and activities?

What chores were assigned to you?

What did your house look like? Is it still the same?

What traditions did your family have?

Did your family have big reunions?

Did you like school? What kinds of grades did you get?

What were your favorite subjects?

When you were a teenager, what time did you have to be home at night?

How old were you when you met grandma/grandpa?

How old were you when you got married?

What was your first job?

Tell me about my mom/dad when he/she was growing up.

Who writes this crap? Why was I born?

Since there was no indication of what exactly we're supposed to do with this thing, I sent the following e-mail to the teacher:

Ms. Third -- what are your expectations about the grandparents' interview sheet that you sent home? Younger Daughter wants nothing to do with it. I'm not a fan of homework in elementary school and I'm inclined not to fight her about it. Thanks. -- FedUpMom

My devout hope is that this sheet was sent home as one of those allegedly fun family activities, and it's no big deal whether Younger Daughter does anything with it or not. I guess we'll find out.

UPDATE: I received the following e-mail from Ms. Third:

Mrs. FedUpMom, It's actually an assignment from Mrs. Liber, our librarian. My understanding from her is it's something for the students relating to her curriculum. I'm happy to follow up for her if you like. -- Ms. Third.

UPDATE UPDATE: This afternoon, while waiting for Younger Daughter's bus to drop her off, I struck up a conversation with another mother of a 3d-grader. I asked her whether her son had gotten the "Grandparents Day" paper, and she said "Yeah! It just showed up in his homework folder with no explanation of what we were supposed to do with it. I ignored it." (She, by the way, is what the school probably considers a "good" mother, not a fire-breathing ranter like yours truly.) When I looked in YD's homework folder, the Grandparents Day paper had disappeared. I asked YD about it, and she said "she [a teacher] took it away because it was overdue!" I think everyone involved has decided to pretend it never happened. Works for me ...

Thomas Friedman is Clueless

In today's NYTimes, Average is Over, Part II by Thomas Friedman.

Why am I utterly infuriated? Let me count the ways:

1.) Friedman seems to be living in a parallel universe where parents control the school system. He quotes Jon Schnur saying that "too many kids are not coming out of K-12 prepared for [postsecondary education], and too many parents don’t get it."

Oh really? Lots of parents get that something is wrong with their local schools, and then they discover that they are powerless to effect change. Talk to the parents at kitchen table math, who certainly get that American math education is under par, and ask where their years of activism have gotten them. Talk to Chris over at A Blog About School, and see how much effect he's had on his school system's use of authoritarian discipline.

2.) Friedman seems to think we should ask CEOs what they want, and then design our society to match their needs. I think we should figure out what kind of society we want, and let the CEOs figure out how to run their companies within it. Yes, I'm a far-out lefty.

Currently, a large fraction of Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Of those who are employed, many find themselves working punishingly long hours just to keep their jobs. The top jobs are higher-pressured than ever before (see Linda Hirshmann's article, "It's About the 1%").

Automation and outsourcing first took away blue-collar assembly jobs, but increasingly they're taking away mid-level white-collar jobs as well. We're left with a few high-paid, high-education jobs that will never employ more than a small fraction of the population (e.g., college professor, doctor), and a great many low-level jobs (e.g., nursing, sanitation) that don't pay a middle-class wage. This is not the model of a functioning society.

We are past overdue for serious changes in the American workplace. We need to figure out what employment should look like in a world where more and more work is automated. We need powerful labor unions (remember them?) who will fight for worker's rights. We need shorter workweeks, or at the very least we should start enforcing the 40-hour work week for white-collar workers. Everyone who works full-time should be guaranteed decent wages.

3.) We can certainly do a much better job of educating our kids, and I'm in favor of doing so. But education doesn't create jobs. The fact that college-educated folks have, on average, lower levels of unemployment and earn more than those without college degrees doesn't imply that if we just get more kids through college, jobs will magically appear for them. The large number of unemployed and underemployed recent college graduates speaks to the futility of this plan.

Alcott's Apple and the Marshmallow Experiment

A great deal of ink and pixels have gone to recent discussions (by the likes of David Brooks) of the Stanford marshmallow experiment. Here's the experiment: A preschool child is brought to a room with a marshmallow on a table. The child is told that if she can wait 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow, she will then be awarded a second marshmallow. The researcher then leaves the room and watches through a concealed window to see the child's reaction.

A follow-up study found that the children who were able to defer gratification by waiting for the second marshmallow were also later described by their parents as "competent adolescents", and achieved higher SAT scores than those who ate the marshmallow immediately.

Looking at my own family, I'm not sure whether Older Daughter would have waited for the second marshmallow, but I can confidently predict that Younger Daughter would have eaten the first marshmallow, and possibly taken a bite out of the furniture and the returning researcher as well.

There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes). It turns out that Bronson Alcott, transcendentalist, abolitionist, and the barking-mad father of Louisa May, performed a similar experiment on his own daughters, Anna and Louisa, then aged 5 and 4.

From Louisa May Alcott, Domestic Goddess:*

Bronson, knowing that both girls loved apples, left an unguarded apple near Louisa and her older sister, Anna, with the restriction that it belonged to him and the girls were not to eat it. Bronson knew that the girls would be tempted by this literally forbidden fruit, and he felt that the struggle would reveal important information about his daughters. Since Louisa ate the apple, and then unrepentantly stated that she had done so "cause I wanted it," Bronson's intended lesson in self-sacrifice was obviously only half learned. Anna did not eat the apple, and apologized for even thinking about it. Louisa, on the other hand, may have struggled with her will, but in the end she gave in to it, despite her fear of Bronson's displeasure.

Which daughter grew up to be a famous and still widely-read novelist?

Adults favor obedient, disciplined children, and it is no surprise that such children are spoken of favorably by their parents and do well on the SATs. But the child who insists on her own point of view may have more to offer the world in the long run.

*Overachiever's footnote: I'm still looking for an authoritative source for the apple story. If you know of one, please let me know. I dimly remember a book or article called something like "Rebellion in the Nursery", about Bronson and Louisa Alcott, but I haven't been able to find it.

"You're Not Special"

Making the rounds today, a commencement address: Wellesley High grads told: "You're Not Special", from a high school English teacher, David McCullough.

Contrary to what your soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.

Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have.

But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.

The "middle class kids are spoiled by everyone telling them they're special" meme, while popular, is so false it's just obnoxious. Yes, Barney exists, and middle-class parents try to encourage their kids whenever possible ("good job!"). But all of our efforts are totally negated by our kids' school experience, as this teacher should know better than anyone. Middle-class kids today are utterly stressed out by school, from pointless homework that eats what we used to call "free time", to the jacked-up competition for college placement.

What a lousy way to begin adult life, collecting rejections from colleges. Of course, collecting rejections from employers is no better.

McCullough goes on to offer completely generic American-dream advice, which you can also hear from Barney:

I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in ... Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself.

The current crop of middle-class high-school seniors, after years of overwork and stress, is facing a ruined global economy and an uncertain future. They deserve much better than to be talked down to by pompous windbags like this one.

The Future of Work, Marriage, Children

What kind of world will our kids graduate into when they're done with school? What will the economy look like? Will decent jobs be available?

On a completely anecdotal level, I've been noticing for a while that those with young-adult children report that their daughters are completely job-focused and hard-working, while their sons are drifting around finding themselves. This NYTimes article confirmed my observations: Young Women are More Career-Driven than Men.

The headline statistic was this one, comparing young men and women who said that being successful in a highly-paid career or profession is "one of the most important things" or "very important" in their lives: 59% for young men, 66% for young women.

The poll also reveals that marriage and parenthood are becoming increasingly separate goals, at the expense of marriage. Young women say these issues are "one of the most important things in their lives" at these rates: 37% for having a successful marriage and 59% for being a good parent.

What careers will be available to our kids? Some speculate that in the future there will simply be less work to do, because of advances in technology. I've been meaning to read this book about it: The End of Work, by Jeremy Rifkin. As reported in the Atlantic Monthly, in Making it in America:

There’s a joke in cotton country that a modern textile mill employs only a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines.

I liked this article in the NYTimes: Let's Be Less Productive. Productivity is not a useful way to think about caring professions, e.g. teaching. A teacher with more students in the classroom is more "productive", but it's usually not in the best interests of the kids.

I'm also WAY in favor of a drastically shortened workweek as a way to increase the number of jobs. Of course, to make that work, we'd need universal health care, so that employers wouldn't be penalized for taking on more employees.

Readers? Thoughts? What will the future look like? What should it look like?

Attributing Motives to Kids

Over on Jessica Lahey's blog, she's got a post about hubris. Among other things, she talks about the desire of kids to "test boundaries" and "challenge authority".

Well, maybe. I've been noticing lately that controlling, authoritarian teachers (and, doubtless, parents) are very quick to attribute these motives to kids, in almost any situation. One such teacher thought my daughter was being defiant when she had simply forgotten a trivial piece of her homework.

There's a narcissism at work here; like a certain type of vain, clueless man who thinks a woman is flirting with him even as she's walking away.

Jessica Lahey says:

I think students test their teachers because they know they are safe with the teachers who care about them. They push us away because they know we will still be here when they return to their senses.

Or perhaps these adolescent students, in the tricky phase between child and adult, are trying to establish a more equal relationship with an adult they care about. They won't manage it if the adult in question can only think in terms of "boundaries" and "authority".

Maybe that child who behaves in a way we don't like is "testing boundaries". On the other hand, maybe she's trying to tell us we've restricted her freedom too much. Maybe she's right.

A Novel Way to Aggravate Parents

Concerned Parent (thanks, CP!) sent in a link to this article: Parent Report Cards are Novel Way to Boost Support.

I really hate the article, beginning with the headline. There's nothing novel about report cards, which are highly over-rated as a motivational tool. And I'm not reassured by the point that the parents are encouraged to grade themselves, which, if possible, is even more patronizing. "We know it would never occur to you to wonder how you're doing as a parent, so we've provided a handy rubric!"

This paragraph had steam coming out of my ears:

Nashville resident Christi Witherspoon favors the measures. Despite her busy schedule as a doctor, she and her husband, Roger, spend as much as three hours each night helping their two young daughters with homework.

The daughters in question are 6 and 9 years old! Homework has eaten the family's life, and Mom is OK with that? There's a word for spending 3 hours a day doing academic work with your kids -- it's called "homeschooling."

Under Tennessee's contract legislation, parents in each school district are asked to sign a document agreeing to review homework and attend school functions or teacher conferences, among other things.

Correlation is not causation, people! While it may be true that the children of parents who attend parent-teacher conferences do better in school than the children of parents who don't show up, that doesn't imply that the parent-teacher conferences actually accomplish anything. It's more likely that the kind of parents who show up for conferences are also the kind who offer a supportive environment at home.

Parents as Drivers

Overheard in the car while chauffering Older and Younger Daughter:

Younger Daughter (to Older Daughter): "How come Mom isn't yelling at the traffic?"

Older Daughter: "No, Dad is the one who yells at the traffic. Mom just gets lost all the time."

This was the same trip where Younger Daughter got into my wallet and exclaimed in a voice of wonderment: "Wow, Mom's got a driver's license!"

Defensive, or Arrogant?

School districts don't really care what parents want, especially if they are chronic complainers (i.e., any parent who complains more than once.) — Guy Strickland, Bad Teachers

This post is a response to Chris' recent post at A Blog About School. To recap: the public elementary school attended by Chris' kids has brought in an authoritarian classroom-management system (PBIS), and, among other problems, has turned lunchtime into an exercise in trying to prevent the kids from talking normally to each other through constant scolding and punishment. Chris is engaged in a discussion with the principal at his local elementary school to discover why this policy was agreed to in the first place. The principal is increasingly refusing to interact with Chris.

Chris says:

This strategy of avoiding public answers genuinely puzzles me. It just makes the district look defensive, as if it lacks confidence in its own practices.

I don't think the district is being defensive, or lacks confidence in its practices. From the point of view of the district, the fact that a policy has been adopted means that it's right. PBIS is the latest and greatest, and will continue to be until the next fad comes along. The idea that parents should be able to question it, or demand answers as to who made what decision, is completely foreign to them.

Imagine that you had an irritating neighbor who was always coming around to complain that you don't mow your lawn frequently enough, or your porch needs to be repainted, or you shouldn't let your kids leave their bicycles out. Would you be interested in an ongoing public dialogue with this neighbor? Of course not. You would say to yourself, "who does he think he is telling me how to run my household?"

This is exactly how a public school district thinks about parents. Who do they think they are telling us how to run our schools?

I close with one of my favorite Guy Strickland (op. cit.) quotes:

Bastions of ignorance aren't bastions for nothing.

No School Volunteers in England

In today's NYTimes, The Non-Joie of Parenting, U.S. Style. The author contrasts the relaxed, adult-centered life of European parents to the harried, child-activity-centric life of American parents:

The word “volunteer” was never used in England, where my children’s primary school teacher felt the need to warn me, as an American, that my services would never be needed. “In the morning you will drop your children off and you will leave,” she instructed me. “And in the afternoons, you will not come in, you will not talk to the teachers, you will not ask to help with anything, you will just leave,” she repeated. “Sign me up,” I said, happily.

Please, sign me up too! Involve me out!

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

A commenter asked me what I think of this blog post:

Luria Learning Blog: The Perfect Homework — 4th Grade and Up

What do I think of it? I think "meh".

The post bemoans what a hassle homework is — for teachers. I don't doubt it. But instead of asking the deeper questions about what the homework is for, and while we're at it, what the schoolday is for, she proposes teaching a particular system of note-taking, and having the kids write summaries of their notes every night for homework.

Well, maybe that solves something for the teacher, but I don't see it solving much for the kids. If they don't care about the material, or didn't understand it, not much will be achieved by their writing a summary. How many summaries will they have to write before they loathe the whole process? (Not many, for my kids.) It's only 4th grade, so it's still really the parents' responsibility to see that it gets done.

This is something I see in a lot of teachers' forums and blogs: an obsessive interest in trivialities. Should I organize with colored folders or numbered tags? Who the hell cares?

A Response from the Principal of Fragrant Hills

This goes in the bulging file entitled "I Don't Get It":

Dear FedUpMom,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry that the morning routine was difficult one. I do want to explain that our school colors are black and gold and there are times throughout the school year in which we have spirit days and we do encourage the children to wear these colors. It is not mandated and we want for families to feel comfortable with what the children are wearing to school.

The PSSAs are a stressful assessment. The goal of the Basketball game this afternoon was for the staff members to play a short game with the children cheering as a way to come together as a school community in a fun way and for the students see us working hard and doing our best- even basketball is not a sport in which we excel. We saw this as a way to model for the students that we want for them all to do their best and work as a team when appropriate. The goal of the afternoon was not to celebrate the PSSAs but rather to celebrate the hard work the children engaged in this school year.

I hope that this provides some additional insight into the goal of this afternoon and we will be very mindful of your feedback when we are holding spirit days in the future.

Fondly,
[Principal of Fragrant Hills Elementary School]

What the #$%^@&*#? The kids were cheering while the teachers played basketball? What could possibly be the point? I can guarantee you that my daughter would have vastly preferred running around the court herself, and gotten a lot more out of it.

What does the PSSA have to do with teamwork? If the kids try to help each other on the test, it's called cheating. (Does the school want that?)

I'm glad I don't work in that school — I don't know the rules for basketball! (Yet another example of assuming that sports are a universal interest.) I'm sure Younger Daughter doesn't know the rules for basketball either.

This doesn't descend to the level of Stupid Principal Tricks, but I think it shows the same myopia and lack of understanding of the child's point of view. I don't think young children find it the least bit reassuring to watch their teachers do something badly. They know the teachers are in charge and they want to be able to trust them and feel confident in their judgement.

I could never have predicted when Older Daughter first started school the sheer level of wackiness of the stuff that goes on. People can have debates about whether schools are too traditional or too progressive, but stuff like this doesn't fall clearly into any camp. It's just head-scratching peculiar.

She Had to Wear Black

Another fun morning in the FedUp household ...

I woke Younger Daughter about 10 minutes before her bus would arrive. I got her some new clothes and told her to get dressed.

Younger Daughter: "I have to wear black* clothes today! It's for a game!"

Me: "What? You don't have any black clothes! Nobody told me about this! The bus will be here in 5 minutes!"

I dug around and found the darkest clothes I could — dark purple and green. She sulked and refused to put them on. After a brief tantrum (mine), I eventually found a black t-shirt belonging to Older Daughter (as a card-carrying teenager, she has plenty of black clothes), which Younger Daughter wore as a sort of dress over her own clothes.

You can imagine my feelings when I finally found the notation in Younger Daughter's homework folder — she's supposed to wear black for a PSSA (standardized test) pep rally. AAARGH!

* I suppose I should explain that the school colors are black and yellow. Since when does an elementary school have school colors?

Jessica Lahey and the Myth of Too Much Homework

In the NYTimes Motherlode column, Jessica Lahey opines on The Destructive "Too Much Homework" Myth.

She claims that there is no problem of homework overload, and if there is, it only applies to "uptown" middle-class parents, so it's not worthy of national attention. Thanks a whole arfin' lot.