A four hour practice test for 3rd graders

• The SAT is 3 hours and 45 minutes long.
• The ACT including essay is 3 hours and 45 minutes long.
• The LSAT is 3 hours and 30 minutes.
• The GRE is 3 hours and 45 minutes long.

Minnesota's OLPA, the optional local purpose assessment is a version of the MCA II that districts can offer twice a year to students grades 3-8, is between 3 and 4 hours long for the reading portion and up to 2 hours long for math. 

And this is just the practice test. 

Good grief. Perhaps we will see some of this in Minnesota?

Culture eats strategy

The restaurant nearest our home on this Minnesota lake has a great salad bar (pickled beets) as well as tasty broasted chicken. The LWW and I go there on a fairly regular basis.

The joint also has a unique way of identifying men's and women's restrooms, reflecting the lake environment:

Once in the men's room, you find urinals (no big surprise), but one has this "Hanoi Jane" sticker in the bowl:

Jane Fonda*, an ardent opponent to the Vietnam War, visited Hanoi 42 years ago. 42 years! and some in rural Minnesota have long memories and strong feelings about her actions. 

Culture seems immovable. As the pundits say, "Culture eats strategy for lunch." Here's how Fast Company defines the term:

Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates.

School cultures can be particularly pernicious if they are more reactionary than progressive - or so it seems.

The question I am struggling with is do we try to change cultures or do we figure out how to leverage a culture's values and norms in the hopes of improving school effectiveness? 

Inquiring minds want to know.

* My primary memory of Jane Fonda from the Vietnam era is her costuming in Barbarella, I'm afraid.

When's the last time you asked?

I love 30 second surveys. Amazing how much you can learn as a tech department.