A "Pink '57 Quandary"

First: THE STATEMENT...

So it's been determined by state-mandated tests that a majority of our students are not "proficient" in Language Arts and/or Math. According to those tests our students are way behind in English and Math compared to the students in other, more successful, districts. Test after test has shown this (approximately 20 class days of state or district mandated tests).

Now: THE QUANDARY...

If we keep losing so many days and classes for testing how will we ever catch up to the "proficient" schools? With so many days devoted to testing (not learning), are our students destined to languish in the lower levels of the "data mine"? What a cruel joke... a test that was originally developed to level the playing field for all students in the state turns out to be the engine of inequality of education.

Circle the wagons, ma...

"Circle the wagons, Ma! I think I see a band of consultants ridin' down on us!"



Well, the inspectors are here with that "kicking ass and taking names" look on their faces. They're ducking into and out of classrooms so fast that I think I'm watching a Marx Bros. movie. All we teachers can do is sit in our Potemkin Village classrooms hoping that they don't look behind the newly decorated bulletin boards and discover the sham that we teachers "must be" (because why would they be here if we weren't?). I feel like a subjugated ward of the state.

However, they too are guilty of a sham. How can they possibly know what is the one (or two) right teaching steps that we should take to immediately turn our high school around - "Show more student work." ..."Use fewer 'teacher-directed' lessons in your class." Yeah, right!

I think it's their sanctimonious certitude that bothers me the most. If they knew the answers - I mean REALLY knew the answers- the districts in which the state took control would be "flying high" in academic achievement. But those districts are still mired in the 10 percentile swamps of the state tests.

I could understand suggestions from the inspectors, but it seems that they spell suggestions d-i-r-e-c-t-i-v-e-s. But they, like us, know that failing districts are like "unhappy families"- each is failing in its own way, and usually for myriad reasons.

Moreover, it's presumptuous when anyone says that we know how to "fix" broken schools. If that were true, then there wouldn't be so many broken schools still out there.

Looking back at this blog, I realize that it is so very bitter in tone, but I'm getting very tired of all these "experts" who are so sure that their "simplistic" remedies will effortlessly solve our complex problems. I believe that failing schools can be fixed, but it will take hard work, time, and money. Remedies that most people don't want to hear or to acknowledge.

Surrender or Die!

Well, after seven years of declining state test scores, we are on the verge of being declared a failing school. The state dept. of education has sent in observers to evaluate the quality of the entire school - administrators, teachers, students, physical plant, community, etc. However, I have a feeling that only the administrators (central and of our school) and the teachers will be held accountable. All others will be granted dispensation. I'm not saying that staff is not responsible for some of the lack of progress, but this "play" has many actors and, to paraphrase the Prince in Romeo and Juliet, "... all should be Punished"*


*Pronounced - Punis-'shed- because that way it sounds more Shakespearean!

Where's the rest of me?

I'm dying the "Death of a Thousand Acronyms". Everywhere and everyday I am constantly reminded of my and my students' accountability to the PSAT, and/or SAT and/or the ACT, and the HSPT (High School Proficiency Test), or, if they don't pass it the SRA's (now renamed the AHRA's), and/or the NEAP (National Educational Assessment Program), or the CAPA ( I forget - but some monitoring program), and/or the HSTW (High Schools That Work), and the GPA (Grade Point Average), or the NMSQT (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test), or the ASVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery), the IQ test, not to mention the CAT's or the ERB's, and many, many more... . ARRRGHHHHHHHHH

Two things are evident to me with all these acronyms:

1. With all this Jargon (some might say Argot) somebody's hiding something...

2. With all these extra programs it's evident that public schools aren't seen as bastions of learning, but as reservoirs of "mineable" data.

and, as a corollary to #'s 1 & 2, there's a lot of money to be made serving up "Alphabet Soup"...

Missing post

I sent a missive into the air/where it went I know not where... (apologies to Longfellow)

I wrote a blog last night and, truth be told, it was a masterpiece :). It was about the effects of summer and the dreaded "first day of school". However, when I hit publish it never made it to my blog. The lettering at the bottom kept telling me that it was saving my message, but even that is labeled "draft", and is incomplete. I know that the message is saved ... somewhere. But I don't think I can get there from here.

Anyway, Scrodinger's cat is probably reading it at this very moment.

There is more to this blogging than I expected. Pardon me while I study this some more.

There's much to talk about today's experiences, but it's much too complicated to detail right now. Suffice it to say that life ain't easy at "Event Horizon High".