I am not sure why more attention was not paid to the news that the federal gov is trying to re-shape assessment… AWAY FROM BUBBLE TESTING. That’s right, the game of assessment overhaul is afoot.

For me, this brings up bittersweet feelings.

I loathe the bubble tests and think they stink. I’ve said so a zillion times over. I also abhor the fact that those who make the bubble tests have been feeding us the company line that “we offer penetrating, objective insight into our nation’s classrooms” when really bubble testing has more shortcomings than Tiger Woods has mistresses.

However, I will be sad to see them go as well. Why? For the same reason that so many late night comics were sad to see George Dubya Bush leave the White House.

There is just so much professional mileage I have been able to glean out of mocking bubble tests that really, what’s going to fill my comedic gap?

Michelle Rhee? Hmm… not much humor there.

Arne Duncan? Not self-righteous enough to make for a sustainable target of perennial funny-bone tickling.

Mindless administrators who act like they know what they are doing when really, it’s clear to all of us that they don’t have a clue? Sure, but more than enough admins are actually quite good at their jobs so the bulls-eye isn’t always that big or that fair.

And whenever I stereotype people, I always strive to be fair.

Well, lucky for me that the bubble tests will be in full effect this year… even though as Mr. Duncan says…

The No. 1 complaint of teachers has been that “bubble tests pressure teachers to teach to a test that doesn’t measure what really matters.”

Hmm… where have I heard that before?

Bubble Tests, I am gonna miss ya.

As a writer, one of my favorite quotes about writing comes from Douglass Adams. He says: “I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.”

Too funny, right?

Well, it seems as if George Dubya Bush, once again, has a preposterous amount of egg on his face. Why? Because he set forth a ridiculous deadline that no one in the field of education (no one worth their salt, I should say) ever though would possibly be made and poof! now the Obama administration is left with cleaning up more of George Dubya Bush’s mess.

Seems that the “mandate” that all school children reach 100% academic proficiency by the year 2014 is gonna get yanked. (Read here for more.)

And why? Because this deadline was never anything more than a political platitude that Bush used to try and trump up goodwill for his political tenure anyway — crafted into policy at the expense of reality, of course. A reality, BTW, that he knew he’d never be on the hook for because his term in office would have long since been finished. (A few years too late on that front, if you ask me, but that’s fodder for another blog post.)

Yes, the aims of “closing the achievement gap” and “raising academic proficiency” are still going to stick around… but the deadline to do so is gonna be ka-boshed.

Still in Iraq, pulling the plug on NCLB’s proficiency deadline, financially reeling from deregulating the credit markets to the point of implosion while hunting for WMD’s that were trumped up to begin with… The guy makes Nixon look like Lincoln.

Whoosh! Ka-BOOM!

The sound of a deadline colliding with reality.