Dispensing credits to seniors like Pez on Halloween, this week, our fair school has decided to offer credit to any student who shows up on time for what is being labeled as "an intensive crash course." Most of the seniors who promise to be in attendance are multiple credits away from graduating this Spring. Well, they were until this recent "give away" week. Which leaves me wondering what I would do if I'd grown up in a system that passed me on year after year, believing that in the end, they'd pass me on and discovering that it's true. So, yeah, I guess I'd cut school and party too. As a teacher though, it makes me sick. Most of the kids are coming for English credits because they sat in class for a year without reading a single text or writing so much as a paragraph and now, for one week they will earn a year's worth of credit? I'm not sure that I can work in a system that touts this sort of program. Granted, what does a high school diploma mean these days? But if the plan is just to pass everyone after all, why all the pretense? Why all the staff meetings about high standards? What will a diploma mean to a kid who has done nothing and how angry will it make the kid who has worked her ass off?