The sad story of an L.A. school labeled 'failing'
This was written by L. Martha Infante, a National Board Certified Social Studies teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and veteran of 15 years. It first appeared on the Accomplished California Teachers blog. By L. Martha Infante When the public middle school in which I work received news that we had not met our testing target, and in fact had dropped in our scores, we were not surprised. To the educators on campus, this outcome was a logical event based on the turmoil students and teachers had experienced with the laying off of 23 teachers in 2009, and another dozen in 2010. The social fabric of our school had frayed, there were lots of new faces on campus, and the economic lives of our students were not getting better in the midst of this recession. But being labeled a “failing” school, or “focus school” as is used down
