At the moment I am wondering what the webmaster for CDE (California Department of Education) must be like. The words “innovative” and “cutting edge” aren’t coming to mind.
Here is my beef. I have a nice little bookmark on my Firefox toolbar that once upon a time would take me right to the 8th grade science standards. On that same toolbar I have links to the 8th grade math standards and the 8th grade English language arts standards. This way when I quickly need to look up a standard or find out how I can effectively support my colleagues all of the information I need is just one click away. These links are so useful that I have them set up on every computer I use. A presenter gave me this idea at a tech conference, so I know I am not alone.
Tonight as I was completing some grad school homework I found that none of these bookmarks work. They all yield the lovely message you see above. As I did some digging on the CDE’s site I discovered that they now require to you download the entire PDF for all grade levels for a particular content area. Once you have that file downloaded you have to navigate to the desired grade level. What is this?!?!? 1998?!?!? I want my one click websites back!
On my bookshelf at school I have printed versions of the same PDF files CDE now requires you to download. These books were given to me by a school two districts ago and I use them so often that the spines still crack when you open them. I think I will be opening these PDF files just about as often.
I’m hoping the sites just moved. Then again, I am a pretty good Googl-er and I still haven’t found them. What I did find though was the CDE online complaint form and one of their subject choices is the website. I registered my annoyance. If you find this step backwards as irritating as I do register your complaint as well. Maybe then someone will restore our links. 
Joe
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