Any advice?

I'm applying to help write the STAR test questions in English. I am, shall we say, less than thrilled with the test questions so far (not that I have ever even peeked at any of them, I'm just talking about the released sample questions, of course), and this is an opportunity for real teachers to become involved. Only 26 of the 62 state English standards are tested on that silly test, and of those, it's mostly reading. The writing portion of the test is not actual writing in the 8th grade, it's reading other people's writing, and finding the mistakes or the "thesis statement." The test is ridiculous.

On a side note, our district has just come out with new recommendations for English class placements, based on test scores. Here's just one: if a child scores between 350 and 365, considered "proficient" by the state (the low end of proficient, but proficient nonetheless), that student must be placed in a two-period "bridge" English class at their grade level, rather than the traditional single period that most take now. It's got all of the principals in a tizzy, and we English teachers too. There's nothing in the recommendation about student's grades or effort or anything other than their scores. In addition, English Language Learners can not be transitioned out until they score higher than a 365 on the English portion of the STAR exam.

argh.

Anyway, back to my plea. I have to get in a letter of application and... Horror of horrors... a resume. I haven't written a resume in almost 10 years, and don't even know where my last one went. I'll be doing a web search for how to do one, but I know teacher resumes don't look the same as they used to. New teachers, you probably know best what's out there.

It's first-come-first-served with this application process, so time is of the essence. I'm trying to draft something together this weekend; we'll see how far I get.

Always better to try to effect change from within, rather than complain and do nothing.