No Child Left Unscrutinized

I am trying to sort out just exactly where my ire lies. I am disappointed in my kids because I thought that they would do better. I am frustrated with myself because I didn't do enough to prepare them. I am chagrined by the notion that I had told my principal that I didn't want to force my kids to take one more math assessment before spring break. The whole thing is causing me to gnash my teeth and wish that I had answers for how this all came to pass.
I consider myself a good math teacher. I make this distinction based on the success that I have had with classes in the past, and the success that I have had, for the most part, with this group. Today the magic carpet ride came to a rather abrupt end. The initial response was to figure out how these scores could have been recorded incorrectly. For about an hour, there was some mild celebration in the possibility that the wrong key had been used, and that all the data was incorrect. Just about the time that I was ready to start being officially smug, the realization came that the only real problem was that my students had performed poorly on their math tests.
In a world that runs in the currency of test scores, primary education is a tough place to live. My job depends largely on the focus and attention of a group of ten-year-olds. One of my students asked me earlier this year why I got so worked up while I was teaching about decimals. She wanted to know if it was because I was being observed by my principal that day. I assured her that the next day would have just as much hopping about and gesticulating - because I know that the only way to get kids excited about math is to be excited about math myself. The Friday before spring break I was not excited about math. I was just getting on to the next thing. I was phoning it in. That was a mistake.
There is good news. I still have two weeks before the California Standards Test. The rest of this stuff has all been a drill. The real magilla is about to descend on their preadolescent heads. I will be ready this time, and so will they.