More From The Onion

I thought you guys should watch this. It's pretty funny.

American Dream Declared Dead As Final Believer Gives Up

http://www.theonion.com/video/american-dream-declared-dead-as-final-believer-giv,19846/

The Onion Review: Obama Casts National Musical

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-review-obama-casts-national-musical,19949/

San Diego Zoo Lays Off 2,000 Animals

http://www.theonion.com/articles/san-diego-zoo-lays-off-2000-animals,19933/

Teen Rebel Refusing To Purchase Yearbook

http://www.theonion.com/articles/teen-rebel-refusing-to-purchase-yearbook,19901/

I Need Feedback On My Satire Piece

MCAS Testing Is Seen More Positively

A few years ago when The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, better known as MCAS, was first instituted, few, if any, of the students and educators believed that the standardized test for Massachusetts students was beneficial and worthwhile. Now, however, more students take it seriously and the ones that have taken it before encourage the young sophomore students to prepare well for it. “I tell them that if they pass it the first time they don’t have to keep taking it over and over again,” says a two time senior who has taken it for the past three years. “I have to take it this year again, but I’ll pass it this time. It’s my last shot and I want to do well.”

Most seniors are taking upon their shoulders the task of counseling younger students. “It really shows that they care about us,” says Jorge Martinez who is one of the students expected to score advanced on this week’s English MCAS despite having failed the test before. “I want to make my senior friends proud.”

The younger students appear to look up to the older students who have taken the test before and actually listen to their advice and prepare in advance for the test. They even go to the MCAS prep classes that the school hosts once a week after school before the actual testing takes place. “You would think that they wouldn’t take the advice of the seniors and the juniors who have taken the test before since most have had to retake it more than once,” says the principal of a school that is about to be taken over by the government. “But they do and it’s really improving scores. I mean, at the rate the score are going up we might be able to keep running the show ourselves.”

However, 9th and 10th grade teachers are not optimistic. “Scores are not improving significantly, and the students are still not taking the test seriously for the right reasons. They still don’t get that if they fail it they might never get their high school diploma,” commented an MCAS prep teacher. “I still think it is a waste of time because we are still not getting the scores that we should be getting and it makes us teachers look bad. I mean it’s not as if I’m doing something wrong. So I let my MCAS prep students doodle all they want, what’s the point of trying if they’re failing anyway.”

I Called It: No Government Shutdown

11:55pm

While watching "20/20" just now (I know...a wild Friday night, huh?), I saw a banner at the bottom of the screen: Agreement Reached, No Government Shutdown.

Good thing Period A didn't have the guts to give me odds when I offered them a bet. I would be RICH right now.

I hate to use our blog to brag (actually, no, I don't) but this is news, too. Oh yeah...and I'm the teacher, so I can do whatever I want. In summary, two important points:
1. No shutdown.
2. I win!!!

Your Obsessive Love Or Hatred Of Me Means Nothing In The Grand Scheme Of Geological Time

As the undisputed No. 1 teen pop sensation in the world, I have become something of a fulcrum upon which the extremes of human emotion pivot. On one side, you have people who have vaunted me to such lofty heights it is tantamount to deification; on the other, my high-spirited song-and-dance routines elicit an almost murderous rage. But, I ask, when viewed within the context of the geologic timescale, wherein chronological development is measured by evolutionary and stratigraphic events over countless eons rather than transitory human experience, what does any of it truly matter? Quite simply put, it doesn't. Your adoration or loathing of me, a 17-year-old entertainer from Canada, is no more significant than a grain of sand on a beach, disappearing when Earth's mighty oceans rise and then retreat—as they will hundreds of thousands of millions of times until the sun is extinguished and the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Rick Ross, the Great Wall of China, and everything else even remotely related to our feeble, fleeting species are but forgotten whispers in one planet's geochronology...

I suppose we've come to the point where we should just plainly state the ugly truth of all this: If you expend any energy at all either obsessively doting on me or hating me with the very fiber of your being, then I'm sad to say you are squandering your brief window as a cognizant being in this universe. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how better to use your comically tiny duration of sentience. Perhaps tell your family you love them; ponder the intricate beauty of a dew-flecked spiderweb; listen to Nicki Minaj's very good studio debut Pink Friday. In the end, however, none of these things will matter all that much either, not in the great and widening chasm of geological time—let alone when one considers the age of the cosmos from which it has sprung. But maybe in these ways you can draw a brief moment of respite from the existential dread. Ultimately, I believe that this is all one can reasonably hope for. There is no God. Justin Bieber's new smash-hit concert film Never Say Never is now in theaters nationwide! http://www.theonion.com/articles/your-obsessive-love-or-hatred-of-me-means-nothing,19707/?utm_source=morenews