This is the sort of thing that the Big Standardized Test has brought us--Top Score Writing.
TSW is the brain child and property of Lisa Collum, who bills herself as mompreneur. Collum graduated from Florida Atlantic University about 16 years ago and went to work in 2004 as a writing teacher in a Palm Beach County School District Title I school and the Florida Virtual School . She became concerned that the school didn't have a writing curriculum for her to implement, and she had trouble finding one, so she created lessons. So far that makes her exactly like the vast majority of teachers.
But then she turned it into a business. She turned that business into some other businesses, too-she bought a private school (Coastal Middle and High School). By 2012, she had left the classroom and was running her million-dollar business full time. She wants other women to know that they can have it all.
It's a heck of a story, for sure, and I'm glad that it stars someone who actually trained for and worked in a classroom. Her inspirational video says that you don't have to have business knowledge--just an idea you're passionate about.
So what idea has made Collum successful? The aim of Top Score Writing is right there in the name. This is a program with a single, focused aim--to get students a high score on the writing portions of the Big Standardized Test.
To its credit, it doesn't really pretend to be about anything else. It doesn't promise that students CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching Bad Test Prep Writing For Fun And Profit