Grammar Thug on Patrol

OK, I admit it--I'm kind of a grammar facist. Not that I never, ever in casual writing/speaking misuse grammar, but in even semi-formal speaking and certainly in any but the most loose, informal writing, I get things correct. What's more, it annoys me when other people don't, at least people who should know better. I can't help it. I come by it honestly, what with my mom being a queen grammar facist herself and a retired English teacher to boot.

Anyway, on Thursday my friend Rachel called me from work. Rachel is the mother of Abra's buddy Lily, also a Kindergartener, who lives just a few doors down from us. Rachel was calling to vent. It's KRA-L time--that would be Kindergarten Readiness Assessment-Literacy. You know, dumb state-mandated tests because of course Ohio I'm sure has its own state version of NCLB. Rrrrrrgh. Presumably, there will also be some for Math, Social Studies, etc. Anyway, the first one was for literacy and it just tests children's development for reading purposes. On Wednesday, a note came home with Lily regarding how she did on the assessment. She did fine, but the subject of Rachel's rant was GRAMMAR MISTAKES IN THE NOTE FROM THE TEACHER!!!! She wanted to know if I'd gotten the same note, since Abra and Lily are not in the same class.

So Abra's KRA-L note came home Friday. Rachel saw it and said, yes, same note. So at least it's not Lily's teacher who's the doofus. But I read through it and found the following sentence: "It gives both you and I information about how to best build upon your child's literacy strengths and also how to address their needs." OK, maybe those aren't the most horrible mistakes you can possibly make, but a threefer in one sentence! In a note about MY CHILD'S LITERACY LEVEL! Yeesh. At least, we've established that our teachers didn't write the notes (as far as we know--maybe one of the teachers wrote up the note and they all used it). But what's worse is that the author of the note is probably some flunky who's in charge of setting up our kids' literacy curriculum or something.

For those of you wondering, Abra did fine. She got 27 of 28 possible on her score. This prompted Dad to say, "She missed one?!?! Is there a hanging chad somewhere??" Heh. She did get a smiley note from Mrs. Murphy saying that Abra is off to a great start.