By Leah Stecher 12th grade student at Santa Monica High School
To redesign or not to redesign — that is the question: Whether ‘tis more beneficial for Samohi’s test scores to suffer The whims and inconsistencies of our new format, Or to take arms against a sea of problems And, by showing the force of our opposition, end Them. To end is to revert to the old status quo — No more — and by status quo we mean remove The heartburn and the thousand natural problems That flesh is heir to when we impose change — ‘tis a complacency Devoutly to be wished for. To end redesign, to return to previous standards To return, or perchance to try a new design. Ay, there’s the rub, For in a different design what new and unforeseen troubles may come, When we have shrugged off this current innovation, Must give us pause. There’s our responsibility to the students That should allow our current experiment longer life to produce results. For who would bear the initial confusions, Th’oppression by those with new power, the parents’ concerns over the effect on college admittance, The pangs of losing a loved classroom, the delay caused by new hierarchy, The creation of new offices, and the remedial classes The patient teacher endures teaching When he himself might teach only AP classes With his qualifications? Who would these hardships bear, To grunt and sweat to adapt to a new system, But that the dread of something worse, The undiscovered idea from which No lowered test scores ever return, should give protesters pause And make nobler beings of us all, And thus the mercenary tribes of opposition Are returned to their classrooms following reflection and thought; And this enterprise of great pitch and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry And forget hastily conceived revolution.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 1, 2006. Read the original PDF.