What we "MUST" do

Below a teacher speaks out about the "extra resources" that turn around schools receive.

As as an elementary teacher in the district, I will agree that the turnaround schools do have more funding available. My colleagues at the turnaround schools are just as committed as I am to educating our country's future citizens. And the teachers at those schools have their hands tied even tighter then mine are when it comes to implementing innovative ideas in their classrooms.

Duval County has paid for learning schedules to be written. At the beginning, a learning schedule was a great idea because it kept all our students in approximately the same area of the curriculum which made it easier for students transferring to be successful at their new school. BUT then, we started seeing "improved" learning schedules. These schedules tell us what to teach on a given day and what materials are to be used. Teachers are to follow these plans with fidelity and rigor. If a teacher is "caught" using other materials, regardless of if the students are showing progress with an alternative curriculum, s/he is in danger of being terminated. If a teacher is too far "off" the learning schedule, regardless of how the students are mastering the material, s/he is in danger of being terminated. And so it goes. And how would the district know this? Because a large number of people are employed that have nothing more to do then visit schools and walk through classrooms checking for "artifacts" and "data".

In my school, we MUST write our own lesson plans and have a week's worth o our desks on Monday AM, even though plans are provided in the learning schedule for most subjects.

All elementary teachers in the district MUST post a word wall, MUST post essential questions (the objective of each lesson), MUST post bulletin boards with "current" student work accompanied by standards, commentary, teaching/learning rubrics, and whatever else a building administrator deems necessary.

All teachers MUST keep a data notebook on their students and be able to name the students most at risk for district personnel when they visit our classrooms. The data notebook MUST also show plans for remediation of the unsuccessful students and when it takes place.

All teachers MUST record their grades in a county purchased program with little or no training in its use. And the requirements go on ad nauseum.

When does all this get done? After contract hours if teachers TEACH when they are supposed to. But wait, you ask, what about your planning time? That is spent in meetings and contacting parents (which also must be documented). All of these requirements have come around since the implementation of NCLB. Once our schools were no longer "making gains" as mandated by the federal government and measured on the FCAT, more controls were put in place to monitor the classroom teachers. No one has even dared to suggest that it might be NCLB and the FCAT causing the problem, it MUST be the teachers! So even more money is spent at the turnaround schools "monitoring the teachers" because their students are having the most difficulty making gains. Has spending more money policing the teachers lead to increased learning gains in any school? Can this expenditure be considered a resource?