KattyWilly

No child left behind update.  I spent some time looking at a few resources and I am starting to get some feel for what NCLB means.  I found a few sites that talk about requirements for teacher credentials, and a few that deal with requirements for curriculum development.  One of the big issues is the testing that seems to be required.  We are in Florida where we now have the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) which has had it’s share of controversy.  When we started school there was no FCAT, but we did have something called CTBS.  The kids and perhaps the teachers too, called it Childrens Torture Before Summer, but it is actually the TerraNova Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills.  In the mid 90’s developement of the FCAT and Sunshine State Standards began and the first tests were given in 1998.  So we have had the opportunity to watch the changes in the local schools as the FCAT has been implemented.

Chelsey wasn’t feeling well yesterday so we stayed home from school.  She had a stomach ache and her head hurt.  I’m thinking it is mostly allergy related.  She went to school today, so I will wait to see if the phone rings for me to go get her at school.

While we were home I found my new voter ID card and decided to call about absentee ballots.  It took about 30 seconds and they will now send me an absentee ballot for every upcoming election through the year.  Everybody should try this, no more hassle waiting in line at the precinct, and no problem forgetting about the smaller local elections either.  And best of all you don’t have that funny feeling of where is my vote when you drop off the little smart card.

This morning Lindsey and I got up early and went to the rink, only to discover that we didn’t have her skates 🙁  We had left them with our nieghbor who drove the girls home from the rink last night.  I think that is our first time for being at the rink all ready to skate with out skates.  I scrambled and found a way for her to get to the rink after school today, and I’ll race up after work to pick her up.

Dave writes an interesting post that makes me think.  He’s talking about Arnold pushing for some Propositions he wants passed but never says what they are about.

Last night at dinner I was talking with my daughter and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) came up, being a child in middle school, she was talking about feeling left behind because the school ran out of paper and they had to take tests on yellow legal pads. She was attributing that to the NCLB legislation. I was at a loss to actually explain what NCLB really was all about. I know that I’ve heard elements of it described but I obviously didn’t know enough about it to even argue that it was bad or good for my children and their school. I’ve heard that it’s bad, that it is under funded, but what is it? How does it affect mme and my children on a daily basis?  Is it the reason why my kid’s school’s budget has been cut to a level where we don’t have enough paper?

I don’t think any side of the political groups does a very good job explaining exactly what the legislation we live with really does. The proponents seem to want to hide the stuff that their detractors might use to make it look bad and the detractors don’t want any obvious good aspects to be highlighted.  So there is a PR battle waged to play hide and seek with the real details.

I can only imagine what it will take for me to try and understand what NCLB really means to my kids.  I’m starting to read the info at the ED.GOV site and I’m already swimming in PR speak and not getting real details.  It may take a while but I am going to try and see if I can figure this out.

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Click for photos: :

We got up this Sunday Morning and went out to get hot Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast and if that isn’t one of the best ways to start a lazy Sunday I don’t know what is. Later Lindsey and I went out and did some shopping, and then Chelsey and I spent some time out on the deck sweeping up what must surely be some of the last of the twirly birds from the maple trees out back. The weather was just as perfect as could be, crystal clear blue skies, bright happy sunshine, and the temperature was that, just oh so comfortable range, right between cool and warm.

Tonight there was yet another concert. Only this time I wasn’t the chaperone. I went to a concert just for me! I was able to splurge and take a few hours just for myself, couldn’t talk either of the girls into it, to go see the Tampa Bay Symphony together with the Master Choral of Tampa Bay. It was a wonderful performance and the Morsani Hall at the Performing Arts Center has great acoustics. It is a casual affair and there aren’t assigned seats so you can sit anywhere, even right up in the front. Jeans and golf shirts sitting in the front row, definitely my kind of show. The conductor gave a little play by play between pieces which made it even more enjoyable, friendly and casual. If you are in the neighborhood be sure to catch one of the two remaining shows, at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on Tuesday night Feb. 24th, or down at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Pete Thursday night Feb. 26th both shows are at 8:00pm.

After the show I wandered around by the river to watch some rowers, along with a few concert goers strolling in the wonderful evening air, and watching the beginning of a beautiful sunset. The river walk somehow put me in a French state of mind and made me feel like listening to a little Toots Theilemen playing harmonica as I started my sunset drive across the causeway. I couldn’t help myself and had to stop and watch the show. With Toots playing in the background I watched the incredible light show as flocks of sea birds started their run home for the evening, and the shiny little sliver of a toe nail moon began it’s rise while the sun finished it’s setting. A perfect ending to a most wonderful day.

Just another day in paradise.   

Figure skating competition today.  Everyone skated well.  Photos here. .

I stopped at the library on the way home today to take back some CD’s I borrowed.  I really like Libraries for some reason.  I did sneak in a picture I took of the sunset while I was waiting for Lindsey after skating.

I like food, and everyone around me has decide it is time to pop some popcorn.  I have discovered that the best way for me to avoid eating popcorn when I’m not really hungry is to take really deep breaths of the popcorn smell.  Somehow it reduces the need to eat it.  More than anything else I think it has to do with gettig a bunch of oxygen into the system so I can think straight 🙂

Lawrence points me to this article about industry execs pondering the next big thing in the consumer electronics market.  It mentions all the pieces to the wireless Internet receiver.

“Digital content is portable, it’s not confined to a particular physical player like a phonograph or CD deck. You can store and acquire it in a central location and then move it to wherever you want to experience it.” 

Yes! Portable.  But I don’t want to have to store and acquire into some big device in my house.  It wants to be portable, and not just portable around the house.

“But however the network emerges, it must be robust, low in cost and must support streaming media at relatively high speeds.” 

Yes, high speed streaming of data.  Right to the device in my pocket.

“Hamady further suggested that fixed wireless would emerge as the broadband connection to the home,”

Ok, but why not have a wide area fixed network that would provide the connection to the device in my pocket everywhere I go, not just in my house?

“Baktha added that the volume of storage that would be required of the media gateway would be enormous.” 

No!  Don’t do something totally wierd and try to duplicate all this digital content in everyone’s house.  Why not store it in a few places and then just stream it out to the device in my pocket?  Then you don’t duplicate all this data all over the place.  I don’t want to have to carry 200 Gobwoka Bytes of data in my pocket.

Panelists agreed that as the home media center takes off, it will become the driving market for mass storage and storage-area networking, dwarfing the enterprise market, and with huge consequences for the rotating media and SAN industries. “There are already people building hierarchical storage networks with mixed magnetic and optical storage for home media,” Baktha said.

No! I don’t want to become a data center manager.  I’m going to have to deal with a “hierarchical storage network”?  Say What! “with mixed magnetic and optical storage for home media”, are you kidding me?  I can barely say that much less figure out how to manage it. 

Why?  I’m not good at managing the 40 Gigabytes I have right now.  And you want me to do it with 200 Gigabytes and more?  I don’t think so.  Leave that to the data storage experts, I’ll just tell the device what I want to hear, read, watch and it will get it for me and start streaming it over that high speed streaming thing they just talked about.  Please, and Thank You.

I want my Streaming Internet Receiver please!

We went to the beach today.  It was breezy and cool.  Pictures should appear here soon.