My local district is being reformed. We’re going to be ever so rigorous, students will engage in accountable talk until they’re blue in the face, etc. When you talk to administrators, what they’re saying is the right thing and it sounds great.

However, what I see in the schools is that all of the stuff that made this district still appealing is being shuffled away. The enrichment — which meant exposure to artists and music and poetry, etc. — happens on a day, here or there, if we’re lucky. The writing that my older kids were asked to do in early elementary was light years ahead in terms of thought and creativity than the crap my youngest and his cohort are being taught (they’re actually taught to write sets of sentences like this: I love watermelon. First, it is red and cold. Next, it has green. Last, it tastes good. Clearly, watermelon is my favorite. — that’s the format — “topic sentence” detail sentences listed as first, next, last right in the sentence and then a totally stupid concluding sentence, as modeled above. This is not being used as an outline, or a way to think about writing, this is the formula taught to kindergarten and first grade students.)

SO my point and I had one is that you CANNOT separate policy from implementation. In fact, your first step should be looking at implementation — what’s being done that works and how can we strengthen that, what’s the part teachers feel is weakest, how do they want support to change that weak part.

Top down policy implementation is not working.

Back to change my posting name, before I get in trouble! This is so late, no one’ll likely ever see it anyway.

This has been always been the case anyway, AYP or not.

My first year? They gave all the freshmen a test. Everyone who scored 10% or below they gave to me.

Your story aligns with what I’ve been hearing from teachers and administrators across the country for the last several years: the fear of sanctions for not meeting AYP benchmarks has stifled creativity and exploration. Anything that cannot be justified as having a direct impact on improving test scores is difficult to justify.

It’s not like there’s any evil bogeyman responsible for choosing the path that appears safest, but the unintended consequences of NCLB need closer examination.

A little reductio ad absurdum: What would be better? An army of well-trained, engaging, effective teachers who’ll be in the workforce for the next 35 years? Or…making AYP for 2009?

I’m sure that the one-on-one time that an extra person could provide for students would hurt test scores.