Look toward the end of the book–the last page, even. Goldman writes, “Life’s not fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”
Here’s an idea: find out what pens were used to make the marks on the test, and get duplicates. Set up your own test. Since they are so certain that they are able to identify when circles are over and under other circles of different colors, make, oh, ten or twenty different combinations of order and timing. Some should be made with marks of red before and some after. Not fifty-fifty, but close. Keep a detailed log of when the marks were made (include time), then seal this in an envelope. Hand the page with marks to the dean and request that she prove her ability to determine when marks were made. Once she has had her chance, hand her the envelope and allow her to grade herself. If the headmaster still gives you guff, just mention the defamation lawsuit that may occur.
Don’t let 'em bully you.
That’s basically what Ivylad said. I was in tears, afraid Ivyboy is going to be expelled. (He’s a senior, both he and his sister are in private school and we are sacrificing much to make work financially) Ivylad says that the headmaster is pissed that we believed our son, and may be going on some sort of witch hunt to find stuff to show us that our son is not a Perfect Little Angel. Which we know, but in this particular instance, we are believing our son.
So, our strategy is to check with our son to make sure there’s nothing he’s not telling us, then go to the meeting with an attitude of “Oh, really? My goodness! Well, we will certainly look into that.”
As far as I was concerned, this was dealt with yesterday. I don’t know what this is about, or why they won’t let it rest.
Remember that after Ivyboy graduates he will receive, on a regular basis, snivelling letters asking him to please contribute to the school’s financial needs. He can then remind them of this incident and point out how remiss he would be to financially support a group of morally bankrupt pedants and tweed-jacketed falsifiers.
The best part is they will send him whiny appeals every year, so he will get many opportunities to heap abuse and scorn on them.
No. Good plan. But he should contribute once, and parlay the occasion into a pretext for obtaining the alumni mailing list. Then he adopts your plan, with copies to all the other potential contributors, and his proof in an attachment, carefully documented.
He’ll need to wait until Ivygirl graduates, at least. 
JustAnotherGeek, this is a case of discretion being the better part of valor. Ivylad attempted to show them another question on the test, that showed where Ivyboy’s ink had bled through, but he would have none of it. We agreed to disagree, Ivyboy is pissed enough that he’s going to get good grades and show them all, and I thought this was over. I don’t want to beat a dead horse. They’ve already made up their minds.
That’s ingenious. But yeah, if Ivygirl is still there when this plan is put into effect they might take it out on her.
Not to aggravate an unpleasant subject, but just curious - what are the perceived advantages to the private school that make the financial sacrifice worthwhile in your opinion.
I mean, your kids can get dicked over at the public schools for nothing more than the taxes you are already paying!
I was thinking the same thing.
What gives, ivylass? 
The school district sucks. YMMV, of course, but in our little world of Orlando(ish), classes are overcrowded, teachers are overwhelmed, and my children were not challenged. This school is small, class size doesn’t go over 20 students (some of my son’s AP courses have 4-5 students) plus there’s a large international student body, so my children are friends with Poles, Germans, Vietnamese (my son can say Hello in Vietnamese) and there are more varied extracurricular activites (my daughter took sign language one year, and my son took horseback riding.)
That, plus the school is literally right around the corner from our house, means our children can run back for activities, see sporting events, or get a forgotten book without having to be driven back and forth (although we will pick them up after dark.)
To give you an example, my son was labeled a problem child in public school. At one point the principal suggested he needed to be sent to a school for troubled youth. He was attacked in the gym, badly enough that he cut his lip on his braces, and despite the fact there were two teachers in the gym they saw nothing.
Three days after starting private school, he told me he’d been sent to the dean. I was upset that after barely starting school he was getting in trouble, until he told me they had moved him into Honors English.
You may live in a fantastic public school district. We, however, do not.
Great big hijack here: I’ve never heard this expression or any thing like it and it struck me as quite amusing. Is it common in Orlando(ish)?
This exact same thing happened my sophomore year. . . but it was the entire class. See, I was in an engineering academy so all of us 60 or so kids had classes together. Freshman year, our GATE (Gifted and Talented blah blah) English teacher was AMAZING and really made us all wonderful writers. Sophomore year . . . that woman was useless. We were the top 2% of the school (supposedly) and she had us pasting rice onto pictures of fish to make it look like a mosaic. In an English class. An HONORS English class.
Anyway, at one point she told us all to write short stories, so we did. As many of you know, when you tell the smart kids to do something and they feel like they are being screwed through a crappy education, they will educate themselves. We all cross checked each others papers for errors, ran ideas by one another, etc. etc. Just like you would in any normal classroom setting, but we had to do it for ourselves because she (the teacher) wasn’t doing it for us.
The first Monday after our stuff was due was met with her screaming at us. Apparently, none of us were smart enough to write like that, so CLEARLY we had cheated. In fact, she was SURE she had read most of those stories elsewhere too- so we were dumb to try to sneak that past her. Because of that, everyone got F’s. The best part? She randomly decided to make that assignment 60% of our grade.
Parents went to the principal and FREAKED out. The principal got mad. Teacher stood her ground. The principal explained that she was teaching the smart kids and sometimes the smart kids do good work. She stood her ground. The principal told all the parents, all of us, and the teacher that regardless of if she gave us all F’s, he’d be correcting our grades appropriately.
Eventually she was put on leave. Then fired completely.
It was great. 
So, if your son is like me, he will someday get some vindication. And it’ll be sweet.
Diosa, it sounds like your teacher went nuts. When something is so over the top it’s obvious. I had a teacher in high school that was fun and engaging, but the next year (I wasn’t in his class, but I heard about it) he was mean, curt, and lost his temper many times. It turns out that the second year he was going through an ugly divorce because his wife was having an affair. She was also a teacher, at an elementary school, and was carrying on with the married principal of that school. Teachers are human. We believe this was an honest mistake, that the teacher isn’t out to “get” our son or anything. But sometimes it doesn’t matter.
Lord Il Palazzo, that’s just me trying to put a cute spin on “My son goofed off one semester and got a bad report card.” I can look back with a bit of “Tsk Tsk” now, and my son stuck that report card to his cork board with a note on it of “This is what happens when you slack off!” Believe me, at the time, we did not find it cute, and he had a miserable following semester. I’m glad it tickled you, and feel free to use whatever Fairies you need to take big chomps out of butts.
Maybe she had a breakdown when she realized that every single student was smarter than her.
Teachers like that need to be fired. While this private school looks hopelessly stymied in this regard, in public schools there is even less accountability.
Life sucks, which goes right back to the OP.
Ivylass, I have really been putting a lot of thought into this the past few days. I’m a teacher, so this has applied to me once in a while.
What the hell would ONE point (or however many points one question is worth) make a difference as far as giving the student the benefit of the doubt?
If the teacher is 100%/make no doubt about it/abolutely convinced the error isn’t hers…then, yeah, she should stand up for what she believes in. But is she sure?
I grade so many papers in a week. And I’ve had students come up to me to call me on errors I’ve made. In almost every case, one quick glance shows that the error was mine. Very rarely have I had a student try to change an answer and say I messed up.
Could I say for certain I didn’t make a mistake? Not all the time. If I have a student who isn’t trustworthy, then what I can do is write on the test: “You didn’t answer this one” or some such note. I’ve done that, in fact. Sometimes kids skip a question to go on to easier ones, then forget to go back. Quite often I track the kid down and have them answer it.
Honestly, this seems like a big deal over something that really shouldn’t matter. I’d be very curious to know what this teacher is like in other areas of instruction.
So, even though I said this was a learning experience for your son, it should also be a learning experience for the teacher. I wonder if she thinks all this was worth it.
If things had gone his way, my son’s grade would have been an 84 instead of an 82. When this was pointed out to the headmaster, that his grade would still have been a B, his reply was, “I’ve had students try to get their grade changed from a B- to a B.” My husband’s reply was “I’m sure you have, but has (Ivyboy) ever done it?” He didn’t answer.
The decision has been made, and there’s nothing we can do. Ivyboy is aware that until he graduates he has to keep his head down and get the grades. He’s currently working off his hours (they give them for punishment) and we’ll be able to go into the meeting on Monday saying that he’s already worked off a few of them.
I often wonder if the concept of fairness is inborn whenever I hear a very young child exclaim, “That isn’t fair. She got more than me.” I like to believe that children begin to mature when they observe, “That isn’t fair. He got more than she did.” This means that they have generalized fairness as a principle that applies to others as well as themselves.
I sympathize with you and your son. I vividly remember all too many times when I was unfairly misjudged. But can this be your son’s first encounter with the harsh inequities of life? Surely, he has witnessed by now the phenomena of prejudice, guilt by association, rush to judgment, preferential treatment, and privilege undeserved? The silver lining in this dark cloud is that your son, knowing the sting of injustice, may now be able to identify with others like him.
The school called to reschedule the meeting. Obviously their concerns are not that urgent or they wouldn’t have asked to reschedule. We’ll try again on Friday morning.
NJ, I think you remember how self-centered you were at 17. We all were. So you’re right, my son may have witnessed other incidents, but this is the first time it hit home for him.
It’s really a credit to you and your son that he’s capable of accepting that the punishment has to be taken even though it’s injust, and continuing to do good work.
I’m still not sure I’ve learned that lesson.