Let's hear it for the schools!

This article, pointed out by my sister, says that public school administrators have exceptionally low GRE scores. It complains about the school system for letting this happen, and for letting in 100% of their applicants.

I'm unhappy to hear that the GRE scores are so bad, but the author still doesn't have any plan of action in place. He complains, but he offers no alternative. I don't know if there is a good alternative, unfortunately, but if there were, it would involve having more applicants. What the schools need most is not more selectivity; that would just mean they had fewer administrators. What they need is a wider pool. They need thousands of graduates eagerly vying to adminstrate high schools, including a large number of smart ones. Once that happens, I'm sure they'll have no trouble being selective and choosing good administrators. Although if the people doing the selection are truly lacking in intelligence, I might be wrong about that.

Anyway, the big call is to increase the pool of applicants. How do you make graduates want to work as school administrators?

That's the question, and I hope the reading crowd will have some ideas!
Some of mine:
- Higher pay. The impoverished school districts should dip into their deep purses and pay higher salaries to their employees.
- Better publicity. Show up at job fairs. Make billboards. Come up with catchy phrases. Maybe even TV ads. ("And then Eugene became an administrator, and he made sure no one beat up the school nerds ever again.")
- Better rap. Change the image of the school administrator. No longer will they be dumpy, unimaginative men in tweed suits wearing thick-rimmed glasses. Instead, school administrators will be cool. How to do that I leave as an exercise for the reader. :-D


Honestly, higher pay is hard to provide without state's giving out more money, and I don't know where it would come from. Publicity suffers the same problem, and won't help very much if there's still low pay and a bad rap. Making school administrators seem cool is a tall order indeed. Any better ideas?

Firefly Quiz

I encountered this on the blog of a friend's friend, and decided that since I was planning to head to bed, it was time to take my first Blog-type quiz; after solving the Petals Around the Rose puzzle, that is.

So, they've cast me as the villain. I hope that doesn't ring true with any of my readers? :-P Maybe it's a subtle way of telling me I ought to go see the movie.

You scored as The Operative. You are dedicated to your job and very good at what you do. You've done some very bad things, but they had to be done. You don't expect to go to heaven, but that is a sacrifice you've made for a better future for all. The Operative 81% River Tam 75% Kaylee Frye 69% Simon Tam 69% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 63% Capt. Mal Reynolds 56% Shepherd Derrial Book 44% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 44% Inara Serra 25% Jayne Cobb 19% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Ian gets Civilized

For all those who have only seen me with long hair, I have important news: I've gotten a haircut! This charming new touch of civilization on my otherwise crude form should help my looks at least a little. More importantly, it will keep my hair out of my eyes, my mouth, my food, my beard, and even my touted "sanity."

I had hoped that having long hair would make me look like a Medieval adventurer or someone out of a tale. Mayhap it did, yet it troubled my eyes and mouth so much that in the end I grew it out in the single hope that I could get it long enough to put in a pony tail and keep out of the way. When it grew that long, I tried the pony-tail thing for the entire summer, but I realized that it wasn't all that fun. My hair didn't really look cool to me that way, and every now and then, it would sneak out of its tail to tease me. Now that it's cut, I like how I look, and my hair takes no work at all.

Potionworks

As a preview for the intensely curious, I am posting the titlescreen for PotionWorks. Because it is at full size, I'm linking to it. Note that Blogger has converted it from a PNG to a JPG. This probably saves some disk space on a server somewhere, but the picture doesn't look nearly as good as it does in the game.

Decided to Post

It's pretty late, but I want to wind down before I actually get ready for bed, and I haven't posted in a while. I have been very busy. I've been working on an arcade game for my Game Design course; turned it in at the end of Tuesday. Some things were done, but some things weren't. I think it's complete, but it wasn't as complete as I wanted it to be. It's called PotionWorks, and maybe I'll post more about it if people are interested.

I've also started reading aloud to my roommate. I set a timer and limit it to 7 minutes a night, because I figure 7 minutes won't have that big an impact, and the reading helps me keep sane.

I'm also in a short scene in Evening of Scenes, put on by the theater group in my dorm, the RC Players. I think it would be safe to say that I'm not type-cast.

Have a good day, friendly reader!