The Rhinestone

Upon being awakened by his parents this morning, area 5^th Grader Willis Jones informed his parents that he isn’t ready to go back to a relentless nine-months of preparation for standardized testing, and that he wants summer vacation to not be over yet.

“It’s not fair!  I don’t wanna go back!” declared young Willis, according to sources close to the Jones family.  The elder Joneses reportedly bargained with their sleepy student, proposing that if he does well with test preparation for the next nine months, he’ll be allowed to receive a few weeks of actual schooling sometime late next spring.  “We’ve got to get him invested in this somehow, and he seems to still respond to fantastical promises of non-testing-focused education” explained Willis’ father, Charles.  “We spent all of last weekend doing his ‘Back to Test Prep’ shopping, and getting him new test prep clothes and supplies, so we don’t want him to just trudge off and not take it seriously after all that.  We need him to be excited about spending ¾ of a year learning rote material and how to properly take standardized exams, or else what’s the point?!”

Meanwhile, Metro Schools officials are investigating whether or not this is part of a larger, organized protest movement; reportedly, this investigation was prompted when sources close to Willis’ teacher, Sarah Fairbanks, revealed that she is currently making nearly verbatim the same declaration as her student.

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Photo of school hallway found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hallway_at_Saint_Clare_School.jpg.