An Open Letter to Arne Duncan from a DC 7th grader
Dear Mr. Duncan,
I’m writing you because I got my DC CAS results in the mail. See, I thought you might want to know what they were. I certainly don’t. I mean, the first thing I noticed in that packet was the paper. It’s fancy and green–a pretty light green, which sort of fades out when it gets to the end of the paper. I thought you might want to know, Mr. Duncan. Your system paid for my thick pastel green paper, and for all the ink that goes into telling me that I got a 91% on Reading Literary Text. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. No need–I got Advanced, which is what you’re wondering. I bet you’re also wondering how I feel about that. Am I happy, relieved, perhaps surprised? But I forgot–you don’t have to know, Mr. Duncan, because all that matters is I got Advanced. I’ll tell you anyway. You can’t know every child in this country and their reactions to the pretty green paper, but at least you can know me–just one datapoint, one spot on the chart.
When I saw that green paper, I didn’t hold it up to the light or smile or show it to my parents; I tossed it back on the table and went to eat an August nectarine. Let me tell you what’s on my sheet, Mr. Duncan: It says my name, student ID, teacher, birthday (ours are barely a month apart, Mr. Duncan), and the city I live in, Washington, DC. You live here, too. I wonder if you’ve ever seen me on the street, riding my bike or walking with friends. Your eyes probably went right over me and you forgot me milliseconds after remembering. You might know me, though, in the back of your brain, as Advanced.
Let’s get back to the sheet, though. Want to hear what I can do? I can read sixth grade informational and literary texts and analyze author’s purpose and supporting evidence. I can use and analyze diverse organizational structures to locate information, interpret and paraphrase information, interpret subtle language, analyze relevance of setting to the events and mood of a narrative, and use stated words, actions, and descriptions of characters to determine their feelings and relationships to other characters. But that’s not all! I can use tables to compare ratios! I can solve problems involving finding the whole when given a part and the percent! I can multiply slash divide multi-digit decimals! I can use order of operations to evaluate
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