NCLB Outrages
A Teacher Admits "Failure"
Ohanian Comment: Although this teacher tells a terrible tale, one that can be repeated thousands of times across the country, she give us hope. She hasn't lost her humor. And she's willing to speak out.
Silence is killing us. What are we going to do about this? That's not a rhetorical question: I want an answer!
It's official, I failed to "meet the benchmark" (95% of students "at benchmark") for DIBELS phoneme segmentation fluency. Apparently the state may provide "special help" (corrective action) to "assist" (insist) me in "documenting interventions" (force me to inflict abusive curriculum practices in the form of drill and kill) - trust me, when I get the official letter outlining my sanction, I WILL post a letter with my first and last names on the (not the official, but the best) DIBELS site.
It gets worse - because I gave a presentation critical of DIBELS in my graduate program, and because some of my colleagues are in my cohort, and because my "failure to achieve benchmark" probably means "corrective action" for all of the kindergarten classes in my school - I strongly suspect I am being badmouthed by colleagues already - the same colleagues who are already counting the years to retirement, who don't believe in "rocking the boat" , who DO believe nothing will ever change anyway so why bother. . . .
It's not like I'm a young upstart either - I have enough gray hair - I ought to have earned some credibility!
Strong outspoken women who threaten the status quo. . .ought to be in charge!
To add insult to injury I had to buy (and pay for) my own stopwatch last week to finish DIBELS testing within the required time frame.
— Liz House
e-mail
2006-05-10
INDEX OF NCLB OUTRAGES
