Psst! Hey, kid, want some credit candy? Just don't tell anyone who gave it to you.

It's bad enough that kids who previously did nothing for a year can come to school for a week to "recover" their credits. I thought I was keeping my hands clean by having nothing to do with it. I thought I could just turn my back and say, well, at least I'm not the one letting Johnny out when he can't write a simple paragraph.

Well, it's not that simple. It turns out to be much more sinister and underhanded than I could have possibly imagined. The guidance counselor is altering the transcript from the failing grade to read "CR" and so the official records imply that the very teacher who failed little Johnny has now miraculously passed him.

That's right. Our names are listed as the teachers who passed the same students we failed.

This all came up in a meeting where we finally shared our objections to these proceedings. We had to "insert" the item onto the agenda because information about this whole process has been kept very quiet.

One teacher brought up the important point that these students coming in for a week of credit were not sitting for the legal number of hours required to obtain credit in an academic subject area.

To which the response was something like, "well, they did the chair time the first time around."

But that's not really true. Many of these kids failed BECAUSE they didn't show up, or rarely showed up. But who is going to actually go back and check the attendance records of these students?

I feel sick.

Recently, I asked one of the top students how he felt about one of his friends who suddenly is on time to graduate. I asked him, "does it bother you that this guy has done nothing and that you've worked your tail off and yet you are both getting the same diploma and graduating on the same day?"

He said it did a little, because it didn't seem fair, but that he also understood that his friend was never going to go to college and so they weren't really in the same competitive pool.

I am so impressed that my students are more mature than I am.

But I am still sick.

I know that the bosses are being pressured from above. Still, I'm having trouble making eye contact. I feel a little dirty.

It's all I can do not to say to the kids, "Ya know what? Who cares about Shakespeare. Let's watch movies and play video games all year, and then, I'll come in for one week in April and we'll do a packet. What do you say. kids?"

Or how about if we just stay at home all year except for Credit Recovery Week where we show up with our trusty packets in hand and pass out the credits? Talk about easy money. If that's the end game, maybe I should rethink all this hard work.

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?