You've Got to Be Kidding Me!!!

Ok, I've ranted a few times about Oregon schools since we got here but here we go again...

I am the director of an after school tutoring program at a school of almost 500 kids. The other day when walking to my classroom I saw a banner hung up for a year long school wide goal that was set - for the SCHOOL to read 1 million words this year...that's about 2,000 words per kid the ENTIRE school year to meet the goal...it's February and they've just barely reached 500,000. In Georgia EACH kid was required to read 1 million words! (Approx 25 chapter books for upper grades) To put this is perspective...I just counted the words in Ashlyn's book she brought home from the library today - Clifford's First Snow Day...354 words. So if she was attending this school she would only need to read 6 of these ALL year for her portion of the goal...and the school is only 1/2 way to their goal??? So would've only read 3 books this year?? What a joke, especially for the upper grades, she's just a kindergartner! I should've known when Blake is only required to read ONE AR book/pass test each quarter for his reading grade...Georgia it was 7! What a JOKE!