The school district that employs me has been taken over by the state because we continue to fall below the benchmarks set by NCLB. (no this will not be another NCLB bashing, the more we bitch, the more the general public is convinced NCLB is a good thing) The groups that fall below benchmark nationally, African-Americans and Latinos, fall below the mark here as well. The state has repeatedly told the district to direct more state and federal funds to these two groups but...the district decided that the money was better spent on conferences for administrators, more administrative staff, and remodeling central office.
It wasn't that the state didn't give the district several years to correct this problem, they gave us 5 in fact, but the superintendant and school board ignored the threats. The superintendant continued to give everyone, including the local media, the Baghdad Bob, everything is fine, test scores continue to rise and we are reading better, math isn't a problem...Social Studies and Science?...who needs them and besides those scores don't count on NCLB. We'll be fine, nothing to worry about. Those who have friends who are teachers, ignore what they are saying, they don't know anything, they're just teachers, they bitch about everything. (the last part is true, damn people crack a smile)
Fast forward to 2008-2009, the state controls everything. We have to get state approval to buy textbooks, we have to change our reading testing system to one the state approved (DIBELS), and we have more meetings to learn how to document everything. The state continues to assure us that they are going to let us run the district once we meet NCLB benchmarks, and...some in the profession belive them. Come on people, once the state takes over they don't let you have control back. We're in for a long ride and it won't get better.
Debatable calculations, indeed.
36 minutes ago
4 comments:
Not complain about NCLB? Fuck that!
Your post makes me so mad I'm not even sure I want to comment.
What about it makes you so mad?
It just makes me so mad that your district can't get it together! You'd think after all these penalties and patronizing hoops to jump through- the staff would just... TEACH BETTER.
Make those little shits PASS the test! I mean- if you REALLY were trying- they would pass.
Sigh.
Please taste the sarcasm.
I applaud you for working in a low income district. I hate NCLB for how it punishes the very people who are trying to fix the problem.
But then again- maybe that was what it's intention has always been...
I don't care about NCLB too much, I teach elementary ELL and I know we are never going to reach whatever benchmark is set. Let's be real here people, expecting a 2nd language child to learn to read, write and speak English as well as a native speaker in 2-3 years is unreasonable. Hell, we've got people who've been speaking it their whole lives who use terrible grammer.
That concludes today's soapbox rant.
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