Blogging from the Capitol!

Ok, I’m not really in the Capitol.  I’m across the street in the State Office Building (affectionately referred to as the “SOB”), sitting in on the K-12 Finance Committee hearing.

Right now we’re hearing a bill about increasing scholarships grants to high school kids who graduate early.  Well that just finished, and next up is another bill about a grant program.

However, the bill before this one gave a shout out to AmeriCorps, so I figured I’d mention it… when I heard the conversation turn to AmeriCorps I said to myself, “that is totally going in my blog.”  The bill is HF 1046 and it increases funding for the Minnesota Reading Corps.  I know I know not Promise Fellows, but still… AmeriCorps!  What up!

Are You a Brit Without Ancestors?

I read a press release today about a new genealogy collection being released.  Something struck me as a tad odd.  The release began by stating that “One in two Brits with ancestors are found in the collection.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong… but doesn’t that statement imply that there are Brits who don’t have ancestors?  I was under the impression that EVERYONE in Great Britain has ancestors.  In fact, I was under the impression that everyone on earth has ancestors.

Legendary

I was cruising the Crystal Palace FC supporter’s website this morning (www.holmesdale.net) and I came across a posting from someone with the user name “Beastie.”  He/she posted, and I quote, “I’d happily contribute.  It would be legendary.”  “Beastie,” whoever you are, you have just scored major Mess points for using the word “legendary” during the course of your everyday life.  Well played, sir.  Well played.

Big Mess

My dad is known as “Big Mess”, “Papa Mess”, “Pops” and sometimes even “Scott”.  He is amazing and he came to visit this past weekend for my birthday.  Some of you got to meet him.  We had a great time (more on that once I get pics of the Dome uploaded).

I love my dad.  A son could not ask for a better father or a better role model.  I don’t hesitate to say that I want to be just like my dad when I grow up, not in terms of being a teacher like him, but in terms of the kind of person and father that he’s been and continues to be.  Without him, neither my brother or I would be the people we are today… and for that we owe my dad a great deal of thanks.

High Stakes Testing

There’s been a lot of talk this legislative session about student assessments – specifically high stakes testing.  I continue to be amazed at how some people insist on requiring students to pass such a test in order to graduate from high school.  They claim that the requirement is necessary to make sure that our schools are turning out students that are ready for post-secondary life / school.  I just don’t get it.  These summative assessments, required by NCLB, are of great use in assessing two things: 1) what a student knows at a particular moment in time and 2) the effectiveness at a system of teaching the material on the test.  Notice what these tests don’t measure: how well prepared a student is for the next phase in their life.  Or what kind of person they are.  Or how successful they will be.  Spending all of the money that we do on this sort of testing seems to me to be a colossal waste of staff time and money – two things that our schools are perilously short on right now.

These tests were a waste of time for me when I was in high school.  You could have spoken to any one of my teachers.  Or my coaches.  Or my guidance counselor.  Or my friends’ parents.  Or even to me.  They all would have told you that I was a decent kid who deserved to graduate from high school and was as well prepared as I could be for whatever was going to come next.  I’m not saying this to brag – the vast majority of the people I went to high school with would have fit into that category with me.  Everyone knew the kids that we thought were going to struggle when high school was over.  We didn’t need a test to tell us.  All the test did was waste time we could have spent learning, waste paid, on the clock hours of teachers, and waste the state’s money.

Beyond that, the simple idea of tying an overall evaluation of anything to one moment in time seems crazy.  I’m going to use a sports analogy here because… well because I’m me.  It’s a baseball one too:

Let’s say that you are a scouting director for a major league team.  It is your job to analyze young baseball players and sign the best ones for your team.  In a way, you are deciding who gets to graduate from being a high school or college player to being a pro player.  Using a high stakes test to decide high school graduation is like basing your scouting analysis off of one showcase game.  No, it’s worse than that.  It’s like basing your scouting analysis off of the box score of one showcase game.  Hmm, that kid went 0-4.  We’d better not sign him.  Yikes!  That kid went 5-5!  Sign him now!  See how crazy this sounds?  What the box score won’t tell you is that the kid that went 0-4 hit four line drives that happened to get caught.  He has a great swing.  He’s also 6’2”, has incredible speed, and a cannon for an arm.  It also won’t tell you that he was playing third base when his natural position was left field, making him uncomfortable all game.  He will be a quality professional player.  It won’t tell you that the kid who went 5-5 was 5’3” and can barely run or throw.  Three of his hits were broken bat pop ups that happened to fall in between fielders.  One was a swinging bunt that the catcher tripped trying to field, and the last one should have been ruled an error.  He has absolutely no future in baseball.  If you really wanted to do your job well you wouldn’t rely on the statistics from any single game… or even on statistics at all.  You would send scouts to watch the players… see how they run… see what kind of swings they have… how the carry themselves… how they play the game… even talk with them to see what kind of kids they are.  You would talk to coaches and parents.  After gathering all of this information you would sit down and make some decisions.  I know I made a rather extreme example, but on an all or nothing high stakes graduation test the results are pretty extreme – graduate or not.

Instead of sinking time and money into tests, why don’t we sink time and money into school staff?  Get high quality school staff that can accurately judge whether or not a student deserves to graduate and is prepared for the next step in their life.  And then why don’t we trust them?  People who actually interact with the student can judge that far better than a test with an arbitrary graduation cut off test score set by someone sitting in a cube in the Department of Education.  Why are we willing to settle for such one dimensional measures in our education system when we NEVER would in ANY other area of our life.  For hiring someone for a job, for buying a car, for asking someone out, for making friends, for choosing colleges… we always go beyond simple numbers and try to get a feel for someone or something before committing to it.  Why do we settle for so much less when it comes to our K-12 students?

Messinger Profile: The Current Generation

This is a picture (from left to right) of me, my dad, and my brother after a week or so of camping on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  And of course we are joined by our puppy, Maggie.  Haha, the future doesn’t look too bright for the Messinger clan does it?

I Miss My Puppy!

I called my pops today like I do pretty often, just to check in and talk, and he said that he was about to leave to bring our puppy, Maggie, to the vet.  She’s had a lot of health problems in the past, so her going to the vet is fairly common, but then my pops said that she fell today and hurt her front leg pretty bad.  He said she might need surgery.  My poor puppy!  I wish I could be there for her like the rest of my family.  Here’s to hoping her injury isn’t that bad.

A-Rod: My Thoughts After Sleeping on it All

After sleeping on the whole A-Rod thing and his interview I have a few random thoughts to throw out there.

I agree with everyone on ESPN, ESPN Radio, and every other sports related anything that there is NOTHING that surprises me anymore when it comes to steroids (or whatever you want to call it) and baseball.  Despite not being surprised by anything, disappointment and anger still swell within me when news like this comes out.  That’s how I feel.  Angry and disappointed.  Not shocked or surprised.  I still don’t know how I feel about the statistics from this era.  Thankfully I have a lifetime to figure that out.

As I was listening to Tirico and Van Pelt yesterday someone commented on the fact that we want our athletes to be super-human, then get mad at them when they take steroids to be just that.  As an athlete and a rather hardcore fan of sports, especially baseball, I have to disagree 100% with this statement.  I do want my athletes to be superhuman, but I want them to do it because of their natural ability and work ethic, not because they are on steroids.  I do not want every Joe Shmoe on the street to be a great athlete.  I want great athletes to be unique… to come around once in a generation… not to be constantly pumped out of drug labs.

The other thing that strikes me is the absurd hubris that must drive someone like A-Rod to use these substances.  Here’s a generic version of what I think must have gone through his head:

I am the best at what I do for a living in the world right now.  Nobody does my job any better than me.  There are 6 billion people on earth and not one single person does this any better than me.  What’s more, I am probably the best EVER at my job.  In the entire course of recorded human history, not a single person has ever done this as well as I do.  But I want to be even better and set the bar so high that no one will ever reach me.  So I guess I’ll take illegal drugs to improve my performance.

That someone can sit down and think that is unfathomable to me.  I was watching Troy yesterday on FX and I can’t help but compare these athletes to the Achilles character in that movie.  I don’t get it.

I’m also not sure how much of what he said last night we can really believe.  I’m a trusting person, so I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but a year and a half ago he did another TV interview and categorically denied ever using or being tempted to use performance enhancing drugs.  So he’s already been proved a liar.  I guess time will tell how much of what he said is really true.

I’m not sure who is responsible for the leak of only A-Rod’s name, but I really want to know the other 103 names on that list.  Those players who have never used steroids need their names to be cleared of all suspicion.

I will give A-Rod credit for coming out and admitting his use.  It takes guts to admit that you lied to the world.  You have to respect someone for that.  Now maybe we can have a legitimate conversation about steroids and how we can get them out of the game for good.  Until a star was willing to stand up and publicly admit his use and open that dialogue it was never going to happen.  If A-Rod can be the catalyst for that he might just redeem himself in my eyes.

Ten Things I Think I Think

I read Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback every Monday morning during the NFL season.  He is an amazing writer and it is endlessly entertaining.  One of his sections is called “Ten Things I Think I Think.”  I figured from time to time I’ll throw out 10 things I think I think.  Mine aren’t nearly as good as Mr. King’s, but oh well.

Ten Things I Think I Think:

1.  I think that if three Bush administration nominees had been embroiled in tax fraud we on the “left” would be hammering them, the administration, and the president.  Just because our guy is president now doesn’t make it ok  to overlook this sort of thing.

2.  I think people need to be careful about double standards.

3.  I think I can’t stand the sound of Lindsey Graham’s voice.

4.  I think I need to sleep more than I did last week.
4.a.  I think it is a testament to how great my mood was last week that I did not collapse from exhaustion.

5.  I think I cannot remember the last time I was awake past 2 AM two nights in a row.

6.  I think A-Rod is a clownshow.

6.a.  I think I should apologize to my mother for defending him the last couple of years.

6.b.  I think I knew the Yankees should not have re-signed him.

6.c.  I think he is no longer worthy of wearing the Yankee uniform.

6.d.  I think he is no longer worthy of being a part of a legacy that was forged by people like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle.

6.e.  I think he might be the first Yankee I would consider booing.

6.f.  I think it is a disgrace that someone leaked A-Rod’s name.

6.g.  I think it is a disgrace that the Players’ Union tipped him off to a test in 2004.

6.f.  I think I am angered, not surprised or shocked, by the whole thing.

7.  I think I did pretty well on the intermediate course my first time ever cross country skiing.

8.  I think I’m really excited to see the movie “Mongol.”

8.a.  I think I’m really excited to see the movie “Downfall”.

9.  I think I’m really fired up for Wednesday’s USA vs. Mexico match.

10.  I think I loved Colin Cowherd’s “To Catch a Predator” reference this morning.

Clue and Monopoly

I heard this morning on the news that the next version of the classic board game Clue will include a text message feature and a black-light to find clues with.  Should be pretty sweet.  Also, apparently the newest version of Monopoly features credit cards.  Why do I not own this?

On a completely unrelated note, this is the second night in a row I have been up past 2 AM.  I can’t remember the last time that happened.