It's 7:45, another school day. In the morning, I meet with my AVID class, which consists of borderline students who are in need of a little coaching to get them on track and college bound. They are wide awake today, so I know it will be an interesting class.

My AVID class has a system of measureable data already in place. As teachers, we attend intensive training sessions to learn how to track this data, chart it and use it to better help our students. Literally, there are binders filled with work that spans over the four years the students are in the program. If you need to see how their freshman year went, you yank their file. You can look back at every, single one of their classes and the grades they earned through that year. To do this, it requires a lot of work and paper filing, but we also teach our students how to assume this responsibility as well.

After this, I teach English 10, the HSA tested English course for the county. English 10 comes with a lot of extra work. It is hard to be a World Literature teacher because you have to learn how to balance the literature with the HSA materials. We perform shortcycles every month and a benchmark every quarter. We track these numbers in a program called AssessTRAX, which compiles the information and displays data not only for each student but also for each school and the county as a whole. If we need to know what to remediate in our classes, we can click on the objectives page and see which objectives scored the lowest. A 45 percent in tone? Well, guess what, students? We are working on tone for the next couple of weeks.

Though this can also feel time consuming, it is a valuable resource, as the shortcycles and benchmarks prepare our students for the HSA. You can point to specific questions, review them and practice test-taking skills. The students love to see their progress, and in my classes, we hold competitions to see if we can beat out each other, as well as the county average. Their faces light up. This work is real.

Last year, at a different school, I remember having to put a lesson on hold. An HSA lesson. I had to do this because I needed to finish my AIM information by the end of the day. I already spent, no lie, at least three hours on it, and I had two more classes to go. I had to stand in front of my classroom and tell them, "I am sorry, but I won't be able to do our lesson today -- I have to get this data in."

My students were upset.

That day, I spent my class time, my planning time and my lunch time trying to finish my AIM reports. We were told the parents absolutely loved them and wanted them at the conferences. I have yet to be asked for an AIM report and have been doing them going on two years now. I did all of that work for nothing. I sacrificed my class time and punished my students by not having a meaningful lesson for nothing.

There is nothing more disheartening to a teacher than having to waste your time on meaningless drabble. I hate having to either give up time that I could be using creating lessons that enrich my students, or giving up time at the end of the day that I could be using to tutor my students. And guess what? They hate it too. Believe it or not, they don't want busy work while you sit on a computer, clicking your mouse for forty-five minutes straight. They want your attention. Your time. Your dedication.

Do not believe the people who say "it is just the minority" who are upset. It is not the minority of teachers. When you have a chance, ask a Baltimore County teacher what they think about the AIM system. I promise you, the majority will, in some form, tell you that it is not only a waste of time but also a detriment to our students and our staff.

A Baltimore County teacher

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