If my poor memory serves me correctly, sometime late last week I typed the following into the little "Blogger" WYSIWYG word processor:
Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
For those not initiated into Edunyms (educational acronyms), "SBA" stands for Standards-Based Assessment, which is itself a Eduphemism (educational euphemism) for "high-stakes testing" which is another Eduphemism for the "test scores that show up in the newspaper and determine whether a school has to do 'Continuous Improvement' crap", which is another Eduphemism wrapped in an Edunyms, wrapped in an enigma.
But I digress.
Average folks, who don't obsess over SBAs, newspaper accounts of SBA scores and just want to know which school they should send their Johnny or Jenny might find it a little provocative for a paid public school teacher to say:
Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
Likewise, a slighly-to-greatly more high-paid public school administrator might not like the idea that their employees are saying things like:
Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
And I can understand that from both the concerned parent and concerned administrator angles. I admit it's a tad bit provocative for a teacher to write:
Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
I also admit that I tend to think of the term "provocative" as a value-positive term, but that's the subject for another blogpost. My interest this early morning is asking a question to all those in public education, from Johnny and Jenny, to concerned parent, to teachers provocative and unprovocative alike, to concerned administrator.
What the Hell are those opposed to how "assessment" is now implemented, enforced, funded, and reported supposed to do?
Note: I"m not saying kids shouldn't be held to rigorous academic standards. Quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that those standards are being perversely assessed.
Right now we have a situation where a large majority of those practicing public education oppose something, but are afraid to really say anything for fear of retribution. Oh, they'll complain and rant plenty in the privacy of a informal teacher confab in the halls between classes, maybe even rant a bit at a unrecorded staff meeting. But anything past this, and/or, frankly, the occasional "anonymous" comment to some silly blog is considered too dangerous.
Hmm...
I'm afraid I don't really have the time this morning to even begin to answer the "What the Hell" question, and rather doubt I'm smart enough to ever come up with an answer. Honestly, the question seems rhetorical to me in this environment. What I'd really like to see is somebody out there (yes, one of the three people reading this here thing) throw me a compelling answer to the "What the Hell" question.
Hint: The answer shouldn't simply contain the phrase "get the Union involved", for reasons that are, hopefully, painfully obvious.
The only options I'm seeing right now are: 1. Keep quiet and eventually it will all go away. This is, by far, the majority position; 2. Meaninglessly complain about it in private hallway discussion and at noisy staff meeting (oh, and in useless blogposting).
I'd like to add a third option:: Engage in the process and make the changes happen. But where does one engage, when just about everyone is trying to keep quiet, waiting for it all to go away?
Monday, April 13, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
My National School System Is Worse Than Yours!
All this standardized testing has me exploring the validity of my sense that just about every country's residents feel they have a lousy educational system. South Korea seems on board with the idea, even though their scores are some of the highest in the world (depending, of course, on measure).
England, which also scores higher on some tests, has the sentiment (at least by one observer) that the educational sky is falling in the U.K. as well.
Germany...yup, business leaders bemoan the "educational poverty"
French pundits debate just how horrible their well-funded system has gotten..
And here's some academic starting to slam the Japanese system before the meter runs out and you have to pay to read more...
Here's a pretty (and pretty incomplete) map with expenditures as percent of GDP around the world (2003).
And yeah, that's Norway (on the map) spending a rich 6.8% of GDP (compared with the U.S. at 4.8%), and, sure enough, there's enough complaining about the Norwegian public system to start a continuing, vigorous debate on creating more private schools because the public ones ain't any good.
Lastly, here's an "Educational Index" from a Wiki page on the subject...poor Burkina Faso down there at the bottom.
So many measures, so many ways to find statistical evidence that the schools in one's country are a disgrace. Try it yourself. Type the search terms "X school system failing" where X = the country you want to see slammed. Collect bad comments on 'em all!
P.S.: Extra credit points if you find an "expert" in Country X saying "Country X is not competitive with the rest of the world in Math and Science".
England, which also scores higher on some tests, has the sentiment (at least by one observer) that the educational sky is falling in the U.K. as well.
Germany...yup, business leaders bemoan the "educational poverty"
French pundits debate just how horrible their well-funded system has gotten..
And here's some academic starting to slam the Japanese system before the meter runs out and you have to pay to read more...
Here's a pretty (and pretty incomplete) map with expenditures as percent of GDP around the world (2003).
And yeah, that's Norway (on the map) spending a rich 6.8% of GDP (compared with the U.S. at 4.8%), and, sure enough, there's enough complaining about the Norwegian public system to start a continuing, vigorous debate on creating more private schools because the public ones ain't any good.
Lastly, here's an "Educational Index" from a Wiki page on the subject...poor Burkina Faso down there at the bottom.
So many measures, so many ways to find statistical evidence that the schools in one's country are a disgrace. Try it yourself. Type the search terms "X school system failing" where X = the country you want to see slammed. Collect bad comments on 'em all!
P.S.: Extra credit points if you find an "expert" in Country X saying "Country X is not competitive with the rest of the world in Math and Science".
Friday, April 10, 2009
Meditation Upon Standardized Testing II: Less Mediative, More Rant
In the comments to my last drivel regarding standardized testing, the topic of teachers emailing during test administration, and its inappropriateness, (the act of emailing, not the content of the emails) has come up. I started a comment and it kinda got out of hand, so I present it here as a secondary blogpost. Probably not a good idea, but I'm full of ideas that are probably not good ones.
First the last previous comment from the last post:
The funny thing (okay, it's one of 5,000,000 funny things when it comes to SBAs) is that I'm a over-the-top law-abiding person. Irritatingly so. But when faced with "laws" straight out of Woody Allen's "Bananas": "From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!", what are you gonna do?
I gotta think that underlying much of these SBA "laws" is the mindset that teachers/students CARE about the testing. CARE so much that they will consider cheating (via nefarious emailing and such, I guess). Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
We care about following silly rules to a point and don't leave the test materials "unsecured" and all that, but when it comes to advanced nefarious planning to "cheat" on these things using email, spy planes and such, that is so far away from our actual mindset toward this crap..it like the mental space between Alpha Centauri and Barelas.
All we care about with SBAs is: are they over yet? And when the scores come out and we "pass" this and "fail" that we will not feel differently about our students, school and work performance one iota. And, thankfully, neither will our students.
A few parents and some "gotcha" local media will care, and they will try to convince other parents to care, and these parents may or may not care on some superficial level because they know they are supposed to care about their child's education, even if it not really clear to them what these test scores mean when it comes to their own child's education.
To misquote Allen Ginsberg, America go *&%^ yourself with your Standardized Testing.
First the last previous comment from the last post:
Me: I got the email about not emailing.And now my bloviated, unnecessarily long response:
Anonymous: Well hells bells, if the kids can break all the ridiculous rules in place for them with no consequences, it is way past time for teachers to follow their lead! ;)
The funny thing (okay, it's one of 5,000,000 funny things when it comes to SBAs) is that I'm a over-the-top law-abiding person. Irritatingly so. But when faced with "laws" straight out of Woody Allen's "Bananas": "From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!", what are you gonna do?
I gotta think that underlying much of these SBA "laws" is the mindset that teachers/students CARE about the testing. CARE so much that they will consider cheating (via nefarious emailing and such, I guess). Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.
We care about following silly rules to a point and don't leave the test materials "unsecured" and all that, but when it comes to advanced nefarious planning to "cheat" on these things using email, spy planes and such, that is so far away from our actual mindset toward this crap..it like the mental space between Alpha Centauri and Barelas.
All we care about with SBAs is: are they over yet? And when the scores come out and we "pass" this and "fail" that we will not feel differently about our students, school and work performance one iota. And, thankfully, neither will our students.
A few parents and some "gotcha" local media will care, and they will try to convince other parents to care, and these parents may or may not care on some superficial level because they know they are supposed to care about their child's education, even if it not really clear to them what these test scores mean when it comes to their own child's education.
To misquote Allen Ginsberg, America go *&%^ yourself with your Standardized Testing.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
A Standardized Testing and Technology Meditation
Among all the things you can say about six days (over two weeks) of standardized test "administration" is that it gives the "administrator" a lot of time to think.
Many of those thoughts center, of course, on finding a sharp object to slit your wrists in sheer test administration boredom, but eventually selfish thoughts of suicide subside, and are replaced by myriad others. As much as a teacher tries, thoughts on the subject of education cannot be avoided.
And this is where the Internet comes in, for you might have heard of an application called "email". It allows bored teachers in various hermetically-sealed testing cells to communicate with one another as they have these occasional thoughts about education. Your humble blogger is a notorious "emailer" at my school, not only during testing, and about 2/3rds of the staff has emails from me immediately deleted, trashed, and "spam reported".
The other unfortunate 1/3rd who hasn't figured out how to "report spam" is forced, largely by their own testing coma o' boredom, to actually read my insipid thoughts. I'm perhaps the biggest insipid thought provider at my school, but there are others now vying for the unwanted crown. We send and reply various emails on subjects so banal as to immediately cause unconsciousness upon reading by the general public.
So given that I'm writing this first thing in the morning, I'll spare you, dear reader, instant sleep, and focus instead on another aspect of this "email" thing. The technological aspect.
My school is like many other workplaces, comprised of a wide range of ages. We've got young, first-year teacher types and we've got grizzled veterans. Okay, maybe we have a few more grizzled veterans than newbies. Maybe a lot more than the average school. Let's face it, we're overrun with extremely grizzled 20 years of service and up types. I myself am approaching grizzlement, and show the first signs of grizzle (grumpiness, constant reference to "the good old days", dismissive looks at the hair styles of today's youth, etc.) .
Fortunately for me, my school keeps me looking young by hosting an array of those in a state of extreme grizzleocity. Despite being 47 years old, being in my 15th year of teaching and having a head of hair bereft of even one hair not colored gray, I am generally considered young. And yes, a big part of this is that I act like I'm roughly 13 years old all the time. But it's more than that. There's grizzleaciousness to consider.
Anyway, the high grizzle-o-meter count at my workplace impacts the whole "email" thing. Generally we have two types of email users/lurkers at my school: 1. a smaller group of folks who use the Internet and email at a higher level, roughly on par with the average person in the "real world". These people are used to reading message boards, blogs, stupid comments sections of blogs, etc.; 2. a larger group of folks who occasionally stop by the Internet, but still generally consider the Internet another sign of some sort of technological apocalypse involving robots, evil nerds wearing white smocks and online banking. These, generally more grizzle-heavy types tend to view "email" with a combination of derision (because it's not face-to-face discussion) and fear.
It is into this mix (and percentage) of typologies that these insipid testing coma-induced emails are sent by myself and a few others. Perhaps you can guess what happens then. Perhaps you have a similar situation at your workplace. Perhaps I don't even need to mention the hilarious fallout from each of these missives given that this is still a universal situation. Perhaps I don't need to really get into the massive miscommunications, yelling, screaming, hurt feelings, overreactions, defensive reactions, valiant defenses of others, snippy attacks on others, passive/aggressive lurking and roiling dissatisfaction inevitably left by these "emails".
I probably don't need to get into it.
So I'll just go with my personal favorite tidbit o' the moment. I love my principal. He's a great guy. In the two types of people listed above, he's of the non-Internet variety. When you need to tell my principal something, you don't email him. Ever. You would only email him about something you are legally bound to tell him but really don't want to tell him. Emailing him accomplishes the same thing as driving to the Grand Canyon and muttering the thing you're telling my Principal about while the Principal is at my school hundreds of miles away.
Which is fine.
Anyway, long story short, my Principal very often makes the following announcement over the intercom: "Teachers, be sure to look at your email for instructions on how to do X..." Then he proceeds, over the intercom, to tell us the instructions on how to do X. Then he reminds us to look at our email for these instructions.
I never fail to find this anything less than hilarious. Well, except for when there is anything approaching "important" going on in my class that is being interrupted by a guy telling me to look at my email, then obviating my need to look at my email by reciting the entire email over my 1957-era intercom speaker.
Good times, bro. Good times.
And speaking of good times....ONE MORE DAY OF TESTING LEFT!!!! Whoo-hoo!!! Coma....leaving....body....mind...returning...to....consciousness.
Have a good three day weekend, everybody, whether you consider blogs and "email" a sinister plot or not.
Many of those thoughts center, of course, on finding a sharp object to slit your wrists in sheer test administration boredom, but eventually selfish thoughts of suicide subside, and are replaced by myriad others. As much as a teacher tries, thoughts on the subject of education cannot be avoided.
And this is where the Internet comes in, for you might have heard of an application called "email". It allows bored teachers in various hermetically-sealed testing cells to communicate with one another as they have these occasional thoughts about education. Your humble blogger is a notorious "emailer" at my school, not only during testing, and about 2/3rds of the staff has emails from me immediately deleted, trashed, and "spam reported".
The other unfortunate 1/3rd who hasn't figured out how to "report spam" is forced, largely by their own testing coma o' boredom, to actually read my insipid thoughts. I'm perhaps the biggest insipid thought provider at my school, but there are others now vying for the unwanted crown. We send and reply various emails on subjects so banal as to immediately cause unconsciousness upon reading by the general public.
So given that I'm writing this first thing in the morning, I'll spare you, dear reader, instant sleep, and focus instead on another aspect of this "email" thing. The technological aspect.
My school is like many other workplaces, comprised of a wide range of ages. We've got young, first-year teacher types and we've got grizzled veterans. Okay, maybe we have a few more grizzled veterans than newbies. Maybe a lot more than the average school. Let's face it, we're overrun with extremely grizzled 20 years of service and up types. I myself am approaching grizzlement, and show the first signs of grizzle (grumpiness, constant reference to "the good old days", dismissive looks at the hair styles of today's youth, etc.) .
Fortunately for me, my school keeps me looking young by hosting an array of those in a state of extreme grizzleocity. Despite being 47 years old, being in my 15th year of teaching and having a head of hair bereft of even one hair not colored gray, I am generally considered young. And yes, a big part of this is that I act like I'm roughly 13 years old all the time. But it's more than that. There's grizzleaciousness to consider.
Anyway, the high grizzle-o-meter count at my workplace impacts the whole "email" thing. Generally we have two types of email users/lurkers at my school: 1. a smaller group of folks who use the Internet and email at a higher level, roughly on par with the average person in the "real world". These people are used to reading message boards, blogs, stupid comments sections of blogs, etc.; 2. a larger group of folks who occasionally stop by the Internet, but still generally consider the Internet another sign of some sort of technological apocalypse involving robots, evil nerds wearing white smocks and online banking. These, generally more grizzle-heavy types tend to view "email" with a combination of derision (because it's not face-to-face discussion) and fear.
It is into this mix (and percentage) of typologies that these insipid testing coma-induced emails are sent by myself and a few others. Perhaps you can guess what happens then. Perhaps you have a similar situation at your workplace. Perhaps I don't even need to mention the hilarious fallout from each of these missives given that this is still a universal situation. Perhaps I don't need to really get into the massive miscommunications, yelling, screaming, hurt feelings, overreactions, defensive reactions, valiant defenses of others, snippy attacks on others, passive/aggressive lurking and roiling dissatisfaction inevitably left by these "emails".
I probably don't need to get into it.
So I'll just go with my personal favorite tidbit o' the moment. I love my principal. He's a great guy. In the two types of people listed above, he's of the non-Internet variety. When you need to tell my principal something, you don't email him. Ever. You would only email him about something you are legally bound to tell him but really don't want to tell him. Emailing him accomplishes the same thing as driving to the Grand Canyon and muttering the thing you're telling my Principal about while the Principal is at my school hundreds of miles away.
Which is fine.
Anyway, long story short, my Principal very often makes the following announcement over the intercom: "Teachers, be sure to look at your email for instructions on how to do X..." Then he proceeds, over the intercom, to tell us the instructions on how to do X. Then he reminds us to look at our email for these instructions.
I never fail to find this anything less than hilarious. Well, except for when there is anything approaching "important" going on in my class that is being interrupted by a guy telling me to look at my email, then obviating my need to look at my email by reciting the entire email over my 1957-era intercom speaker.
Good times, bro. Good times.
And speaking of good times....ONE MORE DAY OF TESTING LEFT!!!! Whoo-hoo!!! Coma....leaving....body....mind...returning...to....consciousness.
Have a good three day weekend, everybody, whether you consider blogs and "email" a sinister plot or not.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Dear Albuquerque Journal: Uh...No I Won't
Don't want to miss a day of New Mexico's best news coverage, subscribe here!
--ABQjournal.com 4.6.09
You've used up your sponsor pass trials for this week. Check back again please.
So long, Journal. It wasn't always good knowing ya, but I will be a bit sad when you finally go, completely, away. Which I'm guessing might be sooner than later, deep, über-strange pockets or no.
A Personal List to Help Survive Standardized Testing
When you're about to start week two of standardized testing at your school, you have to focus on the positives. Well, I guess you don't have to, but it's a good idea if you want to avoid focusing on all the mass-murder stories in the paper, begin systematically smashing all the light fixtures in your house and generally get real, real grumpy. So in a gloomy world of earthquakes & standardized testing what's out there to latch onto? What makes sense in a senseless world? Here's a list:
- Yesterday was Baseball's "Opening Day". Yeah, I know ESPN forced a faux opening "Sunday Night Baseball" game, but that didn't count. Yesterday was Opening Day and brought a smile to at least one grumpy teacher's face. What helped the smile is the knowledge that, after Day One, Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a HR as a Mariner (again, finally) and the Yankees are in last place. May Junior hit 80 HRs this year and the Yankees lose 162 games.
- There has been a temporary settlement in the Albuquerque Wind Bike Riders' Hostage Situation. After getting back in town and having every other day absolutely "Dyson Ball" suck for cycling, it looks like we're getting two solid days of bike-worthy weather. I know it's just two days, but I've still got plenty of wind-blasted sand in my beard from last Wednesday's NW windblast. Not to mention the large collection of (fortunately) small branches filling up my yard from the early, early Saturday morning freak-o-storm. April kinda came in like an Al Qaeda terrorist this year. Yeah, I know...cruelest month and all that.
- There are only 33 days of school left. I love my job and all, but I also love that there is only 33 days of it left. And if you count in a useless 1/2 day of "In-Service", the last day of school, the trip to the "Cliff Amusement Park" the day before the last day and our three remaining days of testing at my school (six days of testing over two weeks), we're left with about four meaningful days of instruction. Okay, this one goes into both the sense (good) and senseless (bad) categories.
- Much of our remaining instructional time will be spent doing "mock trials". I've written about this before. This year we will have nine separate trials involving help from various high school students (thanks high schoolers!), and parents who are judges/lawyers, making for a total of about 300 people involved in the festivities. We are still working on getting the Goodyear Blimp, but this is a very good thing that is both logistically challenging and academically worthwhile (imho). And no, you can't really standardize test "mock trials". Good.
- My film class is putting on its first "outside" Film Festival. For years we've done a little in-house "festival" to end the Semester/Year. This time we're putting it on at the Guild along with the kind folks at PAPA (which stands for something including the words "Public" and "Performing"). The shindig is May 9th from Noon to 2:00 p.m. Please consider attending, won't you? And if you see Keif over at the Guild, tell him how nice he has been helping us get this thing together. More shameless plugging and inducements to attend will surely follow.
- We are now another half-hour or so closer to the end of the school year than when I started this list.
- Speaking of Summer and "School's Out for Ever..." and all that, I have a month-long bike tour of Germany I'm DYING to tell everyone about (including maps, daily GPS coordinates and 40-50 links to various "privat zimmers"), but won't because I'd rather keep the three readers of Burque Babble, and not drive them away with scarily obsessive, Unabomber-esque detail and such. So, I'll play it cool and just say, "yeah, goin' to Germany...for a month...no big...some biking around...yeah, whatever".
- The Yankees are still in last place.
- In even more "sports as mental distraction from life" news, today marks the start of the next round of "Champion's League" soccer in Europe. Yes, I care about this. Yes, I am embarrassed that I care about this. May Porto somehow defeat Manchester United. May ANYONE please beat Manchester United. In the battle for the "best team to hate" Man U. has got to be up there with the Yankees. Yes I am embarrassed about both knowing and caring about all this. I'd almost rather be one of those obsessive, mass-murder freaks who collects all the mass-murder stories and tries to bring them up in friendly conversation along with questions/answers like "I think this says something about America, don't you?" and then proceeds to pontificate on their pet, obsessive theories over an entire 30-minute duty-free teacher lunch. Almost.
- With each passing second, "Standardized Testing: 2009" is closer to being over. For those not in teaching, it's also a second closer to the end of Marty Chavez being Mayor. Along these lines, feel free to insert your own countdown clock of happiness. Just be sure to not think about the whole "it's one second closer to me being dead" thing. That's to be avoided.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Life of a Public School Teacher 2009: Flash Non-Fiction Edition
Unlike the last post, it is not now April Fools' Day and I'm not just making stuff up. The little anecdote below is completely, absolutely true, but involves more Foolishness than any April 1st gag ever.
Yesterday morning, various departments around my school had a special 7:30 meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to go over a survey sent by some entity (District, NM Public Education Department) as part of our next step on the road to "Corrective Action" since we have "failed" on our standardized testing scores in the area(s) of Special Education Students and "English Language Learners" over the last few years.
All this "Corrective Action" stuff is vaguely specified in "No Child Left Behind" and has been put into actual practice/policy by the State, etc..
Anyway, as a teacher of "Humanities", I had a choice of going to the Language Arts meeting or the Social Studies meeting. I went with Language Arts for a variety of reasons, including the possibility that us Gifted "Humanities" teachers might become responsible for teaching Language Arts next year. This switch to Language Arts is unclear because we still don't have a schedule ready for next year, due to our inability to decide upon one yet. On April 3rd, we still don't know what we're doing on August 10th or so. Not a clue, really.
But that's a subject for another blogpost.
So I go to the Language Arts meeting. I get into the room, at my usual 30 seconds after it's already started time, and see that the multi-page survey, one filled with boxes and long, long "questions" about "leadership" and "common purpose", hazily projected upon a small screen via one of those "Elmo" document cameras.
The way the survey "process" had worked is that the survey was given to each of us. We were responsible for completing the survey, responsible down to the point of putting our initials on it as proof we did it (I'm 99% sure about this part, as I tried to repress the memory upon receiving the "responsibility" and may have this a bit wrong). We have then been instructed to meet in departments and come to "consensus" on the answers to the "questions".
So what I'm seeing, hazily, on the screen are computations of how many teachers put a certain X in a certain box alongside the vaguely worded survey "questions". Now I'm sitting at the back, because I was late to the meeting, and I notice that I can't even begin to read the "questions" projected on the screen. Others, even those sitting much closer complain of the same thing. Our very, very dedicated department chair fiddles with the Elmo a bit and the mumbo-jumbo gets a tiny bit more decipherable, but not much.
Two things are quickly decided: 1. We will just move on even though most of us can't really see the "questions"; 2. That we will not really discuss the survey questions, and will instead just circle the box where the most teachers put an "X" and get the thing to our school Administration post-haste.
And in about 150 seconds or so, we accomplish this, only stopping to read out a "question" or two and breaking a tie on one "question", even though nobody could read it.
Then we moved on past the survey and talked about spending some last minute money that suddenly appeared out-0f-nowhere, as happens each school year around this time. The survey will now go to our Administration, then on to some folks at the District/State/Wherever, where it will be turned into the rationale for doing something.
Almost certainly somebody at the District/State/Wherever will waive the "findings" of this survey around at a very important meeting, and use the "facts" garnered from the survey as evidence that "Implementation Step X" must, must ABSOLUTELY MUST be put in place immediately. The sentence "One big reason we MUST do so is because of the clear consensus generated in this survey!" will quite obviously be uttered. Yes, there will be an exclamation point to this sentence at the meeting. And yes, there will be significant nodding of heads around the table by those in attendance at the very important meeting upon this utterance.
And no, it's no longer April 1st, this isn't an April Fools' joke, yet each of us in that room yesterday felt far more foolish than any "victim" of an April Fools' joke ever has.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Yesterday morning, various departments around my school had a special 7:30 meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to go over a survey sent by some entity (District, NM Public Education Department) as part of our next step on the road to "Corrective Action" since we have "failed" on our standardized testing scores in the area(s) of Special Education Students and "English Language Learners" over the last few years.
All this "Corrective Action" stuff is vaguely specified in "No Child Left Behind" and has been put into actual practice/policy by the State, etc..
Anyway, as a teacher of "Humanities", I had a choice of going to the Language Arts meeting or the Social Studies meeting. I went with Language Arts for a variety of reasons, including the possibility that us Gifted "Humanities" teachers might become responsible for teaching Language Arts next year. This switch to Language Arts is unclear because we still don't have a schedule ready for next year, due to our inability to decide upon one yet. On April 3rd, we still don't know what we're doing on August 10th or so. Not a clue, really.
But that's a subject for another blogpost.
So I go to the Language Arts meeting. I get into the room, at my usual 30 seconds after it's already started time, and see that the multi-page survey, one filled with boxes and long, long "questions" about "leadership" and "common purpose", hazily projected upon a small screen via one of those "Elmo" document cameras.
The way the survey "process" had worked is that the survey was given to each of us. We were responsible for completing the survey, responsible down to the point of putting our initials on it as proof we did it (I'm 99% sure about this part, as I tried to repress the memory upon receiving the "responsibility" and may have this a bit wrong). We have then been instructed to meet in departments and come to "consensus" on the answers to the "questions".
So what I'm seeing, hazily, on the screen are computations of how many teachers put a certain X in a certain box alongside the vaguely worded survey "questions". Now I'm sitting at the back, because I was late to the meeting, and I notice that I can't even begin to read the "questions" projected on the screen. Others, even those sitting much closer complain of the same thing. Our very, very dedicated department chair fiddles with the Elmo a bit and the mumbo-jumbo gets a tiny bit more decipherable, but not much.
Two things are quickly decided: 1. We will just move on even though most of us can't really see the "questions"; 2. That we will not really discuss the survey questions, and will instead just circle the box where the most teachers put an "X" and get the thing to our school Administration post-haste.
And in about 150 seconds or so, we accomplish this, only stopping to read out a "question" or two and breaking a tie on one "question", even though nobody could read it.
Then we moved on past the survey and talked about spending some last minute money that suddenly appeared out-0f-nowhere, as happens each school year around this time. The survey will now go to our Administration, then on to some folks at the District/State/Wherever, where it will be turned into the rationale for doing something.
Almost certainly somebody at the District/State/Wherever will waive the "findings" of this survey around at a very important meeting, and use the "facts" garnered from the survey as evidence that "Implementation Step X" must, must ABSOLUTELY MUST be put in place immediately. The sentence "One big reason we MUST do so is because of the clear consensus generated in this survey!" will quite obviously be uttered. Yes, there will be an exclamation point to this sentence at the meeting. And yes, there will be significant nodding of heads around the table by those in attendance at the very important meeting upon this utterance.
And no, it's no longer April 1st, this isn't an April Fools' joke, yet each of us in that room yesterday felt far more foolish than any "victim" of an April Fools' joke ever has.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Shutting Down Rio Grande High School DOES Make Sense!
I say it's about time. The decision yesterday by APS and Superintendent Winston Brooks to immediately shut down Rio Grande High School and have students bussed to Sandia High School from now on is a no-brainer. Rio has always been a disaster, was never going to be anything other than a Superfund site for education, and it's been a waste of time trying to "save" it.
Sandia, on the other hand, is the only APS high school to "pass" its standardized test scores last year, and is surely a far, far better place for kids to learn.
Yes, I know the bus ride all the way from the South Valley to the middle of the Northeast Heights is long, and with around 2,000 previously RGHS students that's a lot of buses.
And yes, I know that having those students attend classes held on the Sandia HS practice field isn't the best solution. But for now, it's the only solution until FEMA and the District can come to terms on building the many, many "portable" classrooms that will be needed.
I also really like the progressive idea of offering RGHS students the chance to "camp" at Sandia instead of taking that long bus ride back and forth each day. The agreement with REI to provide tents and camping equipment for these students to "live where they learn" is a great one, and the largess of REI is not something we want to pass up.
I also agree with the decision to terminate/fire all the Rio Grande staff and administration. They obviously can't cut it, and would ruin Sandia's reputation. I know it sounds weird to hire 225 folks from Sylvan Learning Center as temporary teachers, but each one of the new workers will watch a eminently proficient Sandia HS teacher for a week, taking notes while they do so. Let's face it, these Sylvan folks can't possibly be as bad as the Rio Grande teacher they are replacing.
So I think the outrage from everyone on this subject needs to stop. In particular the, dare I say it, racist sentiments expressed by some Sandia HS parents and nearby residents about all these "people" moving into their neighborhood. This is sickening on many levels, and doesn't help anyone. It also overlooks some of the many positives that will come out of this "union" of Rio Grande and Sandia. These include:
P.S.: I'm not quite as keen on the idea of selling the land/buildings of RGHS to the County for use as an auxiliary County Jail, but it is a way to raise funds and will help the County come to grips with its terribly overcrowded existing facility. We need to remember here that no solution is perfect, whether we are residents of the South Valley or the Northeast Heights. Besides, the idea of putting some concertina wire and guard towers up at RGHS has been on the drawing board for years now..now those plans can be put into action.
Sandia, on the other hand, is the only APS high school to "pass" its standardized test scores last year, and is surely a far, far better place for kids to learn.
Yes, I know the bus ride all the way from the South Valley to the middle of the Northeast Heights is long, and with around 2,000 previously RGHS students that's a lot of buses.
And yes, I know that having those students attend classes held on the Sandia HS practice field isn't the best solution. But for now, it's the only solution until FEMA and the District can come to terms on building the many, many "portable" classrooms that will be needed.
I also really like the progressive idea of offering RGHS students the chance to "camp" at Sandia instead of taking that long bus ride back and forth each day. The agreement with REI to provide tents and camping equipment for these students to "live where they learn" is a great one, and the largess of REI is not something we want to pass up.
I also agree with the decision to terminate/fire all the Rio Grande staff and administration. They obviously can't cut it, and would ruin Sandia's reputation. I know it sounds weird to hire 225 folks from Sylvan Learning Center as temporary teachers, but each one of the new workers will watch a eminently proficient Sandia HS teacher for a week, taking notes while they do so. Let's face it, these Sylvan folks can't possibly be as bad as the Rio Grande teacher they are replacing.
So I think the outrage from everyone on this subject needs to stop. In particular the, dare I say it, racist sentiments expressed by some Sandia HS parents and nearby residents about all these "people" moving into their neighborhood. This is sickening on many levels, and doesn't help anyone. It also overlooks some of the many positives that will come out of this "union" of Rio Grande and Sandia. These include:
- With 4,000 students, chances are the new "Sandia Grande" will have the best sports teams in the state;
- I like the new mascot "MataRavens" better than either "Matadors" or "Ravens";
- Especially with the camping option, many of these South Valley students will have a chance to experience life in the Northeast Heights for the first time, and take advantage of the many, many cultural offerings in the Comanche & Wyoming area. As a former resident of this area, I am well aware of how exciting the many strip malls in the area can be for a newcomer;
- And, of course, the most important thing is that these previously underserved students will go from a "failing" school to one that is "passing". And isn't that what it's about? Helping the kids?
P.S.: I'm not quite as keen on the idea of selling the land/buildings of RGHS to the County for use as an auxiliary County Jail, but it is a way to raise funds and will help the County come to grips with its terribly overcrowded existing facility. We need to remember here that no solution is perfect, whether we are residents of the South Valley or the Northeast Heights. Besides, the idea of putting some concertina wire and guard towers up at RGHS has been on the drawing board for years now..now those plans can be put into action.
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