MEAP Test Retaken; Another Waste Of Our Tax Dollars

I recently mentioned the other day about the MEAP testing and the stress it puts on children -- at least on my child, and I assume on other children as well. Apparently a reporter who was allowed in an elementary school in Jackson, basically divulged what the fifth and sixth grade prompts were on the MEAP. Now all the fifth and sixth grade students in the state of Michigan must retake a portion of the MEAPS test. This doesn't affect my daughter as far as the test because she is in 8th grade, but financially we are all going to pay again in the state of Michigan.

This is the sort of story that just makes me absolutely crazy and mad. My husband is currently out of work, and believe me he has a lot of company in the state of Michigan. Yet these people who have jobs are allowed to have major screw ups that cost people in this state money and stress. These MEAP test questions were printed Tuesday in an article in the newspaper, as well as, on the newspaper's Web site on Thursday. Where was the editor and where is the common sense of this reporter?

This is going to cost our state hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to mention the stress these kids are going to have to go through all over again. This state is in a terrible financial mess as it is and now it is going to cost us more money that we just don't have. The governor just raised our taxes in Michigan, plus added lots of new taxes. Who does this hurt? The middle class and poor of course, which has no voice. The rich certainly don't feel it!

CHOOL

Right now the middle class and poor are stretched as far as we can go. Rising prices on gasoline, natural gas, and electricity, a lack of health insurance, and the list goes on and on. People in the state of Michigan are losing their homes to foreclosure at an average rate of 1 in 6. That statistic scares me. Everything goes up in price except our paychecks. How do they expect us to survive?

I keep hearing from President Bush how great the economy is right now. Who does he think he is fooling? The middle class are slowly being eliminated, and we pay the majority of the taxes in this country. We know what is going on; we are not ignorant peasants!

I stretch my food budget every day just to keep my family fed, and with my husband out of work it is nearly impossible. If the middle class are going through this, I can't imagine how the poor can even survive. Don't we have a voice in this society any more? Congress sure doesn't hear our cries.

I am a middle class housewife who has worked outside of her home most of my marriage. The sad part is now with all the hard work over the years on the part of both my husband and myself we may become just part of another statistic. We are becoming a society of the Haves and Have nots! Can you guess which category most of us will fall under?

Right now I don't see much difference in the Republican or Democratic Parties. No one is helping the middle class or the poor. We're too busy fighting a war we were lied to about! It costs so much money to keep this war running yet people's families are being torn apart. Isn't anyone willing to fight for the middle class and the poor in this country? I am sure there are many children going to bed hungry in our country and that is shameful!

My grandparents and great-grandparents came to this country from Italy and Poland to make a better life for future generations, but I feel like it was all for nothing.