No Brainer

Sometimes I think my job could be done by a computer. No, not the teaching part, silly, but all the mundane paperwork that goes with it. I'm not talking about grading papers...it's the other stuff. Here's an example:

At the end of every quarter, we have to compile four lists:

1) students who received all As and Bs on their report card
2) students who have perfect attendance
3) students who have no behavior checks on their report card
4) students who fit all 3 aforementioned categories.

Now tell me, if our report cards are (FINALLY) done on a computer, why can't I (or better yet someone else) just enter the criteria in and print out a list? I mean, it's 2008, right? We don't have flying cars, can't we have THIS? It doesn't seem THAT hard.

Today we had an inservice day (so no kids at school). We had to work on our School Improvement Plan, which sounds productive, but actually is a bunch of bullshit. We split up into 3 teams. My team was responsible for looking over the test data from the past three years and identifying areas of strength and weakness. Ummmm, our data was PRINTED OUT from some sort of database storing all this information. Could a simple program not be created to identify areas of weakness and areas of strength? This just seems like a no-brainer to me!

Ahhh, I think I got it! I forgot who's running the show. People with no brains. Got it.

This commercial is often what I feel like (now, I'm not talking about all the teachers I work with. It's moreso the Central Office who, as I said above, "runs the show"). It's one of my favorites:

http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/working-with-monkeys-1.html