So, Joey Furlong, a fourth-grader in New York state, is
in the hospital for pre-brain surgery screening. Which means he's missing school, obviously. What happens next?
“He is currently in the hospital where they are withdrawing his seizure medications and they have him hooked up to an EEG, so essentially his head is attached to the wall and he has an IV in his hand and he's wearing a pulse oximeter in case something happens with his oxygen levels,” says Tami Furlong, Joey’s mother. Basically, doctors have to wait until he has another seizure to monitor what is going on in his brain before they can do surgery.
“Thursday morning a woman walked into his room with a piece of paper that had his name on it and told my husband that she was a teacher from the New York City School District and that she was there to administer the 4th grade New York State test to my son,” Furlong tells CBS6. The family was shocked. They had already made arrangements with the Bethlehem School District for Joey to make up the exam if he was back in time, so someone asking him to take it from a hospital bed, never even crossed any of their minds.
Joey's father was in the room and stopped him from having to take the test, but ... wow. That is quite a commitment to standardized testing. As
Diane Ravitch writes, "No child escapes testing. Even while they are waiting for brain surgery."
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