A BoE bubble in a dangling conversation

ne week after school was out, teams of schoolteachers gathered at the Saipan Southern High School campus to rate the assessment tests conducted at the tail end of the school year on selected subjects and grade levels.

I was in the team assigned to check the test papers for 5th, 7th, and 11th grade writing tests. My subgroup handled the elementary grade. We had fun sorting out the papers, making sure every answer sheet was properly identified with a name and an identification number. And the bubbles all properly shaded!

The task was mostly about bubbles. We had to make sure the answer sheets were clean so that the scanner would read the shaded bubbles properly. Some of the students obviously changed their minds and failed to thoroughly erase their first answer. There were a few who shaded a fifth letter (the letter “e”) when there were only four choices. Why there was a fifth letter in the answer sheet to begin with was not clear, but ours was not to question. We were to do what we were told.

There were students who may not have had a soft #2 lead pencil because some of the bubbles were shaded lightly. So we had to either darken the bubbles, or transpose the original into a new sheet for ease of proper scanning.

We handled the creative part of the writing, which meant it required a bit of subjectivity. There were no set hard-and-fast answers. There were, however, only five items to rate in the creative section. The answers for the first 40 items were set.

On rating the creative section, we identified the ‘anchor’ papers, grading them from a beginning low rate of “1” to a high rate of “4.” A 3 rating was the norm so a grade above was exceptional. The toss was between 2 and 3, with 2 tagged as developing toward an adequate and satisfactory rate. We erred on the side of rounding off figures so a sense that a product is 2.5, it would be made a 3. It did not take very long to spot the ones and the fours. The grading did have quantitative guidelines so the rating was not all subjective. Nevertheless, intuition remained the reliable guide before we ticked off the count on the quantifiables.

After a first rater got done with a bunch from a class, the same was handed out to a second rater who did a separate rating without reference to the first rater’s work. A third person then reviewed both raters’ work, and a discrepancy of two points led to a conference between the raters to bring the rating within one point.

There were no punched bubbles so we did not have hanging bubbles as they did two presidential elections back when the voting machines of Florida gained their 15 minutes of media notoriety. But there were bathroom breaks and walks to the snack bar stand along the walkway. The mechanical part of ensuring the integrity of the answer sheets was tedious. However, given that the hired help came from a cross-section in the public schools who seldom interact among themselves during the year, fumbling attempts at discourse were made. A few dangling conversations were left hanging.

After all the bubble jokes were made (after the first day), a wit identified a ‘bubble’ at the Board of Education that soon became a subject for extended conversations. It started as a query over adequate and effective teachers’ representation on the board. Now, such a subject, when talked about, is usually approached carefully, done in low voices and whispers, not knowing who might be eavesdropping. One is fearful of being misquoted lest one earns the ire of our representative who is known for a certain type of volatility, and who is quick on the draw to publish his latest thoughts in the local paper.

Yes, this bubble caused a lot of dangling conversations. As the group was in the mood of rating performances, we subjected our Teachers’ Rep. Mr. Ambrose Bennett to a rating exercise on his actuation in the board, as well as his teaching efficacy at Kagman. One group rated our Teachers’ Rep so low that they immediately drafted a letter to the governor requesting for his outright removal from his appointment to the BoE.

Unbeknownst to the first group of raters, a second group also did a separate assessment. They too came up with a letter to the governor, a bit more subdued, imploring the top executive to call a special election to give the teachers another chance to advise him on whether they still think the current Teachers’ Rep still represents their interest. A conference among the raters was called to “settle the discrepancies” in the rating.

“Student Learning is the focus of our Public School System,” their new letter now states. “We would like to see that this remains a sharp focus of the Board of Education in its deliberations. Extraneous issues appear to us to have intervened. There are some amongst us who believe Mr. Bennett has contributed immensely to this sordid state of affairs. We want to gauge the pulse of our colleagues to determine whether Mr. Bennett still retains our trust and confidence.” This letter is now circulating for teachers’ signatures. We’ll see how far it goes in two weeks.

Meanwhile, teachers were quietly told that the governor is now poised to call a special election for a Teachers’ Rep in September, after school opens and teachers are back from vacation. His office is just working out the logistical details before setting the date. Also, officers and members of the Association of Commonwealth Teachers are mobilizing to engage and commit more teachers to its active roster, broaden the base for the necessary conversations regarding the crucial and critical role that the teacher plays in the Public School System of the CNMI.

Yep, there’s a hanging bubble that has received an unexciting “1” rating. It needs to be dealt with. And the conversations surrounding it are no longer dangling; nor is the bubble intended to be left hanging very long.