When the school year started out our school score was down (gasp) 30 points. That means the complex equations used to measure school success spit out our score at 30 points less than last year. The worst ever anywhere in the history of NCLB, at least that's the way we on the staff were presented with the information. At the first real staff meeting our administrator beat us up albeit with a smile in her voice. To call morale low is an understatement.
In order to push scores up we are now subjected to unannounced visits from everyone including, but not limited to principals, assistant superintendents, and superintendents. Fine, come in my room whenever you want but at least have the courtesy to refrain from interrupting a lesson and some feedback would be appreciated. Our bulletin boards, something the district considers a holy grail and sacred cow(maybe a sacred cow holding the holy grail) will be subject to intense scrutiny to make sure they conform to district guidelines. There will be no deviation from district curriculum ever, for any reason. These steps guarantee that students will learn more and thus be better able to pass tests. I know I learned a whole lot from bulletin boards when I was in school. Who needs a teacher when you have huge charts on the walls?
But wait - seems the state made a MISTAKE! Yes, a big giant boo boo imagine that! Our school dropped FIVE points NOT 30 and our hispanic population always a topic for staff meeting discussions (which could be construed as a civil rights/prejudice issue) actually showed good growth, a goal of ours for years. Our administrator knew about this for over a week before a memo was issued informing us of the "good news". Oh and the memo also relayed how impressed an assistant superintendent was to see how our boards reflected much better adherence to curriculum than last year. Really, that's their criteria, bulletin boards. That's their check to make sure we're being good little boys and girls and following the rules. I guess we didn't put up enough crap last year to convince them that we were doing our jobs. Because our test scores did say that we had done our jobs. For example, my partner and I taught all the fifth graders math last year and every student except 3 scored proficient or advanced. We even had one student with a perfect score. Pretty damned good work! But no pats on the back without some smacks to the head is the attitude of the district.
Of course no meeting was held to celebrate, no praise for a job well done (we did drop 5 points to 827- 800 being the goal and we are still in Program Improvement - figure that out). Just a lousy memo after most of the staff had been informed via the grapevine and many of us had been on the state website days before to see for ourselves. Leadership is AWOL.
So as my husband says,"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Unfortunately, not many administrators, or anyone realy, understands statistics. If you are above average, the natural and expected trend always is towards the average. In other words, unless you always have above average students entering the school, replacing the above average students graduating, your scores will have to trent towards average. All students in California , cannot be ABOVE the average Caifornia student, even if that is the state's mandate!
ReplyDeleteIf they want all bulletin boards to be the same, then maybe they should just pass out bulletin board wallpaper. Along with some posters of Hitler, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Castro. You WILL have perfect bulletin boards or we will send you to Siberia!
ReplyDeleteI agree that bulletin boards had very little impact on my education. I can't remember what a single one looked like and I know from personal experience how much work they are to put up.