Mr. White,
During my last two years as a teacher, I had a similar experience. It wasn’t bullying or an anonymous call, but it was heavy handedness by the divisional head of our ten campus system of schools that gave orders to my site’s principal to make things bad for me, enough so that I would resign.
I, too, had been a strong voice against the destructive forces being brought to bear upon our public schools. For me, it was bereft policy of NCLB and the additional indignation of high stakes testing, the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam). If a student didn’t pass, they didn’t graduate. For so many of our kids living in high poverty areas who hadn’t the privilege of opportunity afforded kids living in well provisioned, middle class homes, the threat this test inflicted was painful, demeaning, and developed by state legislation without regards to the connection of socioeconomic circumstance and providing the right supports to “raise all boats.”
Only a few of us in the system would take on the additional tasks of presenting and going to workshops on all the latest testing and curriculum regimes that began raining down upon us. We would return to our campuses, reiterate the latest schemes which changed as often as the weather, and that was that. No more discussion. Teachers and staff were out of the decision making process.
I voiced my opinions at staff meetings and encouraged public participation through a column I was given b
During my last two years as a teacher, I had a similar experience. It wasn’t bullying or an anonymous call, but it was heavy handedness by the divisional head of our ten campus system of schools that gave orders to my site’s principal to make things bad for me, enough so that I would resign.
I, too, had been a strong voice against the destructive forces being brought to bear upon our public schools. For me, it was bereft policy of NCLB and the additional indignation of high stakes testing, the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam). If a student didn’t pass, they didn’t graduate. For so many of our kids living in high poverty areas who hadn’t the privilege of opportunity afforded kids living in well provisioned, middle class homes, the threat this test inflicted was painful, demeaning, and developed by state legislation without regards to the connection of socioeconomic circumstance and providing the right supports to “raise all boats.”
Only a few of us in the system would take on the additional tasks of presenting and going to workshops on all the latest testing and curriculum regimes that began raining down upon us. We would return to our campuses, reiterate the latest schemes which changed as often as the weather, and that was that. No more discussion. Teachers and staff were out of the decision making process.
I voiced my opinions at staff meetings and encouraged public participation through a column I was given b