Tag Tests

And now for some good news…

Michael 5 Comments
We interrupt today’s wailing and gnashing of teeth to bring you some good news.  Naturally there is a lead in.
 
I was sitting around on Saturday thinking of all the places I’d most not want to be. This is unusual because for the most part I think of the places I’d most want to be. Usually it involves water, sand, palm trees, a boat, and female companionship. Specific female companionship if you must be that nosey (or nebby as we would say here). But last Saturday the thought was of the least desirable place, even with the right companionship. Not surprisingly, the place I’d least like to have been on Saturday would be a dialysis clinic.
 
Let’s think about that for a minute, then we will move on to the news. My county as many other cities, counties, states, and countries, now has a shelter in place order. The rule is pretty simple, don’t go out unless staying in endangers your life. And don’t go anywhere if you are experiencing symptoms. For the everyday ordinary dialysis patient (or more appropriately the every other day ordinary dialysis patient) it’s a no brainer that staying in is more hazardous than going to the clinic. And the everyday ordinary dialysis clinic staffer needs no fewer brain cells to also conclude that staying home endangers lives. But it’s the second part that is difficult to reconcile. No matter how you might be feeling, that trip is one of life sustainability. You can’t get somebody to pick it up for you while they are at the store.
 
I was in a good place to think the last place I’d want to be is at a dialysis clinic, the extreme dedication of the staff and their love of their mission to serve a population defining the area between a rock and a hard place notwithstanding. I was in a good place because I was in my own livingroom recliner rather than the one I spent so many Saturdays in at the clinic. 
 
Yes, no dialysis. Okay, if you’ve been following along with me over the years you have a right to be confused. The last thing I wrote about my kidney health was that the transplant last summer did not take and I was back on dialysis. By the way, after still more scans and tests they are no closer at determining why the transplanted kidney clotted so rapidly and completely. But what they had noticed last fall was that my renal function lab tests were stabilizing. Then new questions arose. Everybody’s tests go up and down as function fluctuates, particularly in a patient like me whose renal dysfunction is induced by factors elsewhere in the body. But these were not fluctuating. They were improving. Steadily. 
 
Adjustments in treatment were made, ultimately pared down to only 2 three hour treatments per week, fully half of what a weekly treatment total had been not too long ago. Weeks went by and weekly labs continued to return surprisingly encouraging results. On January 23 I left the nephrologist’s office a free man, well perhaps more a dialysis parolee ordered weekly outpatient lab test and every other week appointments with a call-in on the off weeks. Last week after nearly two month of that routine I was given a appointment three months in the future. I had stabilized! At least for the near future. At that point I thought comfortable enough to tell somebody other than my daughter and sisters and you guys get elected.
 
There is no good reason that kidney function should improve. It’s not unheard of but it is rarer than correctly picking all five numbers plus the white ball. I’m crediting my reprieve to Someone Up There showing a particular kindness to me and expending a miracle on that.
 
I feel particularly grateful, the break coming at a time when going to dialysis could be just as life threatening as life preserving, and pray that the patients and staff at clinics around the world will be safe and free of all complications, even those not COVID-19 related. 
 
And I know now I have to figure out why me and what I am to do with this unexpected opportunity. Sitting around thinking of the places I’d rather not be is not it. I’ll keep you posted.
 
Now go wash your hands!
 
Happy

Don’t worry, be happy!

Yes, No, Maybe

Michael 2 Comments

I’m a sucker for a good survey. Not the ones people with clipboards try to take at the mall while intercepting you rushing out of Spencer’s attempting to make it to Macy’s before the rest of the family realizes you’re missing. Not the ones that pop up at the bottom of otherwise legitimate online news articles implying (inferring?) you can turn your free time into earnings time. I mean real surveys by real polling outlets for genuine marketing, opinion, or news pieces.

Some years ago I shifted all my verbal correspondence to my mobile number and did away with the landline phone. I was all about eliminating unnecessary or duplicate services and as I was more likely to carry a cell phone around with me than I was a corded (or even cordless) device tied to a hard connection in the wall, the cell won. Unfortunately for as cutting edge as we want to believe our smart phones are and how sophisticated we talk ourselves into believing the service providers may be, they still haven’t figured out how to handle Caller ID. Or for all I know they have and haven’t yet figured out how to charge for such an archaic concept, or the government has decided it is in our best interest not to know who is on the other end of the call, or it is in their best interest not to get into a perceived battle over privacy issues some nut might claim. As a result I don’t answer a call unless it is someone in my contact list or is a number I recognize. As a further result I no longer get to enjoy participating in one of the few random phone surveys that still might come my way.

Now I do belong to a few opinion panels and occasionally get to answer a poll or do a survey on line. I also will answer surveys published by those I follow on social media if the topic interests me and I keep an eye out for new invitations from new or established pollsters. It’s all in fun for me. I haven’t filled any free time with “earnings time” and the most I’ve ever gotten from answering a survey was a $15 gift card.

I like surveys. And I think I like giving people a piece of my mind, but then that’s what this blog is for. And now you know we’ve gotten to the meat of the story, the heart of the topic, the reason for being here you and I. Who is getting a piece of my mind today?

You may not recognize it from my writing but I try to keep myself on the right side of the grammar and usage police. Some time ago I taught a few classes at a university. At that time there was a rather decent size to-do brewing over perceived favoritism demonstrated by the grading of essay type questions on tests and we were encouraged to administer multiple choice tests and to use machine gradable answer cards. (This was in the 90s. Now personally I think somebody had purchased a bunch of these cards for a dying technology and that somebody saw their budget approval rights in jeopardy if said cards did not find their way off the storeroom shelves. Just thinking out loud.) Anyway, I became the Mad Professor of Multiple Choices. Every question not only had three seemingly logical answer choices (a, b, and c) but also multiples of those choices (a and b, a and c, b and c) and total inclusion (all of the above) or exclusion (none of the above). I was always careful to arrange the answers so “all of the above” came before “none of the above” so I could not get drawn into the argument “but Perfessor Evil Tester, how can ‘all of the above’ be right if it includes something that might be right and ‘none of the above’ sayin’ that none of them is right ’cause there ain’t no way nothing can be right and not right at the same time.” I knew my tests, and my test takers! If you consider that a multiple choice test is just a big survey you could say now I know my surveys also.

So, to make a long story short (and aren’t you glad you’re not getting the long version?), I had to scratch my head when this little gem popped up in my Facebook feed, although it was Facebook.

Survey

Hmm. Did you watch TV last night? Yes, No, Not Sure. Not Sure? Really? You can’t tell if you were watching TV? Not “Both yes and no depending on when last night.” Not even to old “Prefer not to answer.” Nope, they really asked “Not Sure.” How are you not sure? Wait, I have it. You were watching a television network broadcasted show via a streaming service on your handheld mobile device. That makes sense. Yeah. Probably an offspring of the “Hey Perfessor” guy.

Oh, just so you know, somewhere in this country the “Hey Perfessor” guy is part of somebody’s health care team. Let’s just say I “prefer not to answer.”

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Michael Leave a comment

SAT reading scores are at their lowest in forty years.  In our state, standardized tests were first reported to be so low that more schools did not meet minimum standards set by the Department of Education than those that did.  A few weeks after that report was released we were told things weren’t that dire; whoever wrote the report reversed the math and reading scores.  In fact, there were just as many schools that met the standards as there were those that did not. 

If it only stopped there.  Another few weeks had gone by and then there was a cheating scandal that broke out.  Apparently teachers were taking tests for students who did not show up in an effort to raise the average.  We’re not certain which is more pathetic – that the teachers only raised the odds to 50/50 to meet standards or that teachers could only raise the average to 50%.

The general feeling is that high schoolers don’t want to, or don’t feel they have to take tests.  But once beyond high school, once into the realm of those going to school because they want to rather than have to, once dealing with people who have an investment in their education and in their futures, disappointing results will be rare.  She of We works with a woman whose father, now into his eighties, still teaches conversational French to the residents at the care facility where he is also a resident.  He often commented that he would have preferred to teach at college where the students wanted to learn rather than at high school where the students wanted to meet their minimum requirements so they could play football. 

The disappointing results are not restricted to high schools.   Just this week there was a report that several local schools of nursing are in jeopardy because less than 80% of their graduates, the minimum required to maintain the school’s certification, could pass the nursing licensure exam. 

While all this is going on, money is pouring into the schools.  Even with the recent cuts to education seen across America there are billions being passed through from the federal government.  Over $160 billion has been spent by the federal government on K-12 education over the past 45 years.  That averages over $3.5 billion per year.  Last year Washington sent $25 billion to school.

And yet even at this amount of plus what the states and local districts put into their own education we are not educating.  Are the tests to blame?  Are we really turning out Einsteins at record paces but nobody knows because the kids can’t take standardized tests.  Who hasn’t, or hadn’t, heard someone say “I know the material, I just can’t take tests.”  You never hear someone who scored well on his or her SAT say, “I don’t know jack but I know how to pick from a list of multiple choices.” 

No, we’re certain that if you know the material you know the material no matter how somebody asks you the questions.  It’s time those who are teaching do.  If there are cuts to be made let’s eliminate some of the administrative staff.  Do we need three assistant principals, two secretaries for each, and a prefect of discipline at the elementary K-3 building?  Don’t cut the education programs.  We need arts as well as sciences.  We needed PE as much as we need Math.  And maybe a class or two on how to take tests.  Life is full of them.

Besides, if we had to come up with a different way of measuring competency than through testing, we could end up grading student nurses on, well, on nursing.  Stick out your tongue and say cheese.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?