Today we begin the weeks long saga of standardized testing. I'm sure you have some opinions. So do I. . . My first year teaching, almost 10 years ago, I taught 8th grade math. It was a "high stakes" year in Louisiana which means that if a kid doesn't pass the math and English test in the spring they don't pass 8th grade. They'd be forced to summer school (where I would just teach them everything again as quickly and boring as possible) just to take the test again. Fail again -- back to 8th grade. You can imagine how traumatic this was. . . I always think about this kid J I had that year. He was 17. He was sweet. He towered over me, covered in tattoos, couldn't read, and had been passed along between failing schools and held back every year by the test. He had special needs but the school was a recent state takeover by a for-profit charter so to say he got any help at all from anyone certified to do it would be too generous. Heck, I was not even certified to do it. (Somehow I actually g...