Roster Villification

November 19, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Note: After losing most of this blog and website just before Halloween of this year, I’ve been rebuilding it from salvaged text cut’n’paste into long documents with some pretty strange formatting. Since I’m having to redo any posts I wish to retain anyway, most are getting fresh edits – or at least being shortened a bit. Many are simply not being reposted.
This was going to be one of those.
But this week two First Grade teachers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, took a principled stand against subjecting their students to any more abuse in the name of standardized testing. Their story and the letter they sent home to parents made waves, and they are likely to be fired for doing what’s best for their students.
I couldn’t help but remember a few months ago when I did the opposite, and caved in the face of almost no pressure. I’m reposting this as a confession in contrast to their courage and their conviction. My other rebuilt posts retain their original posting dates for logistical reasons; this one will not. It was originally posted April 16th, 2014.

Roster Vilification

Right now I hate my job.

I like my co-workers, my administrators – even the nice lady from the ESC who had to talk us through Roster Verification this morning. I may hate myself a little, now that I think of it.

I don’t even teach a tested subject this year. State law as it stands this week (it’s been rather flaky lately, so who knows what 30 days from now might bring?) says I can pretty much make up my own standards for VAM in my department, while my friends down in the Math & Science halls are tied to tests already taken and cut scores which are determined by random rolls of leftover D&D dice sometime in July.

What do I care, seriously? What difference does it make what bureaucracy I agree to, just to move things along? Why am I blogging this only so I don’t write my 2-week letter – THIS time of year of all times?

I just looked through a list of 168 students and confirmed with God as my witness that I am 100% responsible for everything they’ve ever done or will do, good or bad. Kids I haven’t seen in months. Kids who’ve been through weird circumstances, or who haven’t but have just shut down anyway. I’m also taken credit for kids I don’t think I’ve really taught much to – they’re just ‘those kids’ who show up and do most of what I ask.

They may have 102% in my class, but I don’t think they’re leaving with a love of learning so much as reinforced cynicism about just playing along with the system.

Which is what I just did.

This is wrong – this electronic tying of each teacher to each kid based solely on who’s on your grade book at a given point. It doesn’t matter that I have upper middle class white Methodists from two-parent families who only miss school for golf or family vacations to Europe, while the guy next to me has kids suspended so often he has more class admit forms than completed assignments.

There’s nothing in the measurement to indicate where a given kid might be mentally, or emotionally, or how often I’ve even had them physically in front of me. I don’t even recognize some of the names I just said were mine.

But I agreed to it all.

I agreed to it all because refusal doesn’t make things difficult for the State – it makes things difficult for my building principal, who I love and respect. It makes things particularly difficult for the nice lady from the ESC who started off so determined not to take my comments personally, but who hasn’t dealt with me often enough to know how unrealistic that was. (She actually did very well until my first effort to submit everything locked up the network – probably at the State’s end – and we had to reboot and start over.)

I agreed they’d been with me in such and such class all year, even though first semester was an entirely different course with a different name and number. I agreed although 140+ kids from various teachers including myself were pulled out of our sections in November and given to the new guy – but I couldn’t remember which ones and didn’t want to try to dig through old records to fix it. I agreed even though it was wrong – wrong mathematically, morally, pedagogically, and emotionally.

I agreed because refusing to cooperate wouldn’t change anything, and would be a huge pain in the ass for people who aren’t actually the ones causing the problem. I agreed because realistically this won’t even affect me that much – I teach Social Studies. No one cares what we do most of the time. We don’t get much support or respect compared to other cores, but we also don’t get called to the same meetings or face the same stress. I’m 47 and tenured, and could probably make the same money doing workshops and PD full time. I agreed because this isn’t really my problem.

Which is the opposite of what I teach my kids all year. It’s the antithesis of that stuff that helps maintain the thin illusion that anything we’re doing here matters, or has value, or could change anything. “Don’t rock the boat – it won’t help!” That should replace the other posters in my classroom for the last two weeks. Just sit in the back of the damn bus. Just finish the wire transfer from the hidden account. Just ignore the policies that maintain poverty for political gain, or segregation for social stability. Just walk past the problem.

You don’t even have to pull the trigger – just don’t step in front of the gun. You’re not that important – you can’t change something this big with some small, symbolic gesture that’s going to do nothing except make everyone around you have to work harder because you’re an ass. Pick your battles, dude – just click the ‘Submit’ button. This is Oklahoma – what are the chances that whatever policy is going to save us all this week will even be around in a year?

So I went along with it. I did what the instructions said, cynically, but in order to move along – much like my most successful students, now that I think about it. They do it because we tell them to, and that’s how you get an ‘A’. I fight it all year, wrestling for their academic souls, and just gave mine away for a bowl of convenience stew.

None of my kids will know, or care. My co-workers get it, but figure – correctly, no doubt – that I’m overreacting. My bosses might even agree, but can’t come out and say so.

But none of that really matters, because right now I hate my job. I hate my state. I hate the naiveté that’s kept me doing this for so long as I move past my otherwise employable years. I hate the other professions I turned down because I thought I was that f***ing important – a difference maker – a world shaker. I hate how when that little moment of decision came, I did the easy thing because I didn’t think the big thing was even a possibility. I just fed the machine, and it let me go back to class.

I have students coming in 15 minutes, and we should be discussing what we’ve read so far in The Grapes of Wrath. I’d meant to talk about “Joe Davis’s boy,” who drives the tractor that’s tearing up their land and down their homes, and I’ll ask them whether he’s part of the problem or not.

They’ll say he is, most of them. And they’re right.

We’ll talk about the ‘monster’ that’s bigger than the people who work for it and in it, and – being young – they’ll take a more defiant stance than the characters in the book are able to at this stage in the story. A better stand than I did today. Eventually, maybe, they’ll learn to just… go along. I can hardly steer them otherwise.

I hate myself today. And I’m sorry.

Advice for the Next State Superintendent of Public Instruction (OK)

October 18, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I should begin by saying that this post is in no way intended to advocate for one candidate or the other in this race. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little political editorializing – but this mini-trove of wisdom is here for THE WINNER, whoever that may be. If you want to talk substantive issues in depth, search Twitter – that’s what they do there. Or I guess you could go to HIS WEBSITE or HER WEBSITE and read up on the candidates yourself.

(We’re not actually big fans of that here in Oklahoma – the whole ‘inform yourself before you take a vitriolic stand on something’ – but, whatever. You’re reading this blog – that makes you informed enough, in my book.)

But Mr./Ms. NewSupt – let me help you out. You’re walking into a no-win situation in many ways, but that’s OK. We’re teachers and we know all about devoting time and energy to futile efforts. In order to help smooth your transition to power and better navigate the rocky political shores of #oklaed, I’ve compiled a handy dandy guide for your pedagogical and popular success.

This is not a countdown – you may move these around as you see fit and the blinding wisdom stays just as blinding. There’s no cost for these, either. I’m not seeking patronage or fiscal gain. This is for you. And our teachers. And Oklahoma.

This is for… *sniff*… THE CHILDREN.

(1) Pay attention to our teachers. There’s an enormous pool of talent and experience scattered across this state, much of it combined with the sort of missionary zeal necessary to teach here on purpose. Actively seek input from professionals actually doing the work in and around the classroom, and from the many different types of districts and classrooms you’ll find here. Strong leadership means being willing to listen, and learn – maybe even change some of the assumptions you had going in.

(2) Don’t pay too much attention to teachers. I love my profession and my peers, but there are some real weirdos in the mix, and they tend to be loudest. Besides, none of us can quite agree even what we think school is for – you can hardly expect us to have a coherent message how to best make it happen. Strong leadership means doing what’s best for the kids, long-term – not what’s popular with the entrenched majority. Sometimes teachers need to be willing to listen, and learn – maybe change some of the assumptions they’ve held for so long.

(3) High expectations lead to high achievement. You remember all that stuff about the Zone of Proximal Development from teacher school, yes? Kids are wonderfully gifted at doing everything possible to convince us that they’re the most helpless, hopeless, clueless little darlings on the planet, exerting all of their available resources merely to mouth-breathe. They want us to think they’re beyond stupid – so we can’t possibly expect much of them – and to their credit their methods are impressively varied and resolute.

But they’re not stupid. They’re loaded with all that potential we talk about even when we don’t always believe it. Many are actually rather brilliant.

No trophy or grade or diploma is nearly as rewarding as actually accomplishing something. Anyone who plays a sport, an instrument, or a video game knows this – the learning happens in the struggle, and the struggle is part of the reward.

(4) You can’t grandstand about ‘high standards’ and beat kids up with bubble tests and think it solves anything. Your constituency wants simple answers and ‘strong leadership’, but kids are complicated. Learning is weird, and a few platitudes won’t cut it. Some of the darlings entrusted to our care spend their two mites daily just trying to survive – emotionally, physically, socially, whatever.

The ones we too-easily reward need to be pushed and challenged and made uncomfortable; many of those we ignore or condemn need to be fed or hugged or listened to. It’s hard to give substantial damns about Algebra II when your world seems to be caving in on you, and our concerns are not always their concerns. “I’m sorry about your real life, but I assure you in three years this boring bit of otherwise irrelevant knowledge will be PRETTY IMPORTANT for your post-secondary pursuits, so let’s try to focus, shall we?”

Let’s not pretend that Social Darwinism or any other thinly veiled ‘–ism’ is actually just ‘high expectations’.

(5) With great power comes great responsibility. The Epistle of James (that’s in the BIBLE, for you non-Okies who might be reading) says that teachers will be judged more harshly for the positions they hold. You are in that position a hundredfold. James goes on to suggest that anyone who can control their tweets has self-control in all things. Be aware that everything you say, post, or do, sends ripples across more time and space than you’d ever intend.

(6) You’re not that important. Don’t get too full of yourself, just because you have a fancy title and a little power. The state legislature is still necessary in order to do REAL damage to schools and students across the state (which they’re all too happy to do), and no matter what the reaction you receive when you show up somewhere, most of us go about our day doing pretty much whatever we want without actually thinking about you one way or the other.

(7) Throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix anything. Tons of statistics show little correlation between $$$ expended and student achievement. We can’t pretend it’s all about money. It doesn’t buy happiness, and it’s a poor substitute for hard work and good decisions.

(8) Starving out our schools is absolutely positively guaranteed to make everything worse. Tons of statistics show the correlation between adequate investment in students NOW and the fiscal impacts – positive or negative – in a decade or two. I’m sorry the state is poor, but we MUST have funding. We can’t pretend it’s not about money – funding and resources are ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS major factors.

People who don’t think money matters always have lots of money which they hang on to as if, you know… it matters.

(9) Don’t limit yourself to people you like. Good people do stupid things. Counterproductive things. Evil things. Assume the best intentions of others – even when they’re annoying – unless they make it absolutely impossible to do so. Give those who disagree every reason to assume the best of you as well. The most irritating sometimes provide the most essential challenges or insights.

Resist the temptation to take the cheap, melodramatic road. Anytime we slide into ‘us’ and ‘them’, it’s over. At that point we can only ‘win’ and ‘lose’ – we can no longer create, solve, or celebrate. At the same time, your good intentions are no substitute for good decisions. The road to now is paved with good intentions, and they won’t cut it any longer. We need right actions.

(10) Question everything. Are this set of standards or that set over there really THE KEY to Oklahoma’s success? If we can just find the right curriculum to post, are our biggest problems basically solved? Are “Oklahoma Values” something we wish to define and defend, or just something that sounds anti-something else? Is everything local wholesome and wise… everything national evil and dark? Are those of us raging against ignorance really SO willing to base future-shaping decisions on whether or not listing Thomas Jefferson in Paragraph 19 Subsection C is THE primary cause of Americans joining ISIS?

Maybe we can’t hold back the muddled darkness, but need we embrace it so eagerly?

Surround yourself with people who challenge you and won’t accept on faith every word you utter with dramatic conviction. Move boldly ahead, but with inner fear and trembling. Respect the possibility that you’re so very wrong – or that if you’re right, you are insufficiently so and it simply won’t be enough. Treat this position not as a stepping stone to something greater, but as a calling in and of itself.

Sure that’s melodramatic – but internal framing like that is about the only thing keeping any of us in this profession ’round these parts.

You’re representing thousands of teachers and kids and possibilities and shortcomings and breakthroughs and nonsense and hope. Chances are good no matter what you do, we’ll all have turned on you in a matter of months and will repeatedly mock and condemn you. Don’t expect us to feel too badly for you on that count – remember, teachers here. That’s our daily existence.

I hope you find this list helpful and insightful. Really, if you stick to these ten, you should be good. I am of course available for further insight and wisdom should you require my services. The link to subscribe to my blog should be up there on the right-hand side of the page somewhere.

Good luck.

#OKSDE & The A-F School Report Card

September 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The Oklahoma State Department of Education recently released its infamous “A-F Grade Report” for districts across the state. Why?
Let’s look at their own A-F Frequently Asked Questions page, shall we?

Note three things about this, keeping in mind the OKSDE chose the question, wrote the answer, and put it first on their own FAQ:

1. The A-F system is designed so parents and others can get a quick & easy idea how schools are doing. If you know anything about public education at all, you know that how we’re doing is anything but easy to measure. Half the time we can’t even agree about exactly what we should be doing. But the whole purpose of A-F, according to this, is to more conveniently label HOW SCHOOLS ARE DOING – minus context, nuance, causes, solutions, etc. This is repeated throughout the FAQ. Parents or community members could, of course, quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing by visiting and asking how it’s going, and what they could do to contribute – but that would be expecting someone outside the school itself to do something other than offer criticisms and blanket condemnations from afar.

2. The report card is a measurement “for challenging students and communities to strengthen the effectiveness and performance of public schools”. What does that mean, exactly? More importantly, now that we’ve done this a few times, what signs are there that each year with the A-F report cards come out, students rise up and communities mobilize to begin “strengthening” their schools? Does the SDE have even anecdotal evidence suggesting anything positive happens as a result of these press releases? If not, then by its own defintion the process is a failure and we can stop. If, on the other hand, students and communities are having montage moments over school effectiveness, then we should see very few schools on the ‘F’ list twice, yes?

3. The primary indication of success is standardized test scores. That’s a world of issues in and of itself.

Let’s look at another question from the FAQ:

Wow. Where to begin?

4. Of course there’s a loss of funding. The state keeps cutting education budgets across the board. The only distinction is that they cut funding for all schools, not merely those labeled ‘D’ or ‘F’. This is the opposite of what a teacher – even a mediocre teacher – does with a student who’s trying, but not finding success. Imagine me bragging to a parent or administrator that although a specific child is in grade trouble, I’m not reducing the time and energy I spend trying to help her! Well – I am, but I’m reducing the time and energy I spend helping every other kid also, so let’s just pin on that Excellence Through Equity medal now!

5. If kids don’t hit those nebulous testing targets, we send in the REAL experts – the folks at the SDE – to educate the teachers. Of course the SDE has held the key to student success all along, but they’ve been keeping it super top secret to give those poor struggling teachers a chance to try it THEIR stupid way. Do we have any stats on the impact of this visit from the SDE on student test scores the FOLLOWING year? I mean, if the problem is that the teachers need some “spurring,” and the SDE’s done come and “spurred” them, scores should soar, yes?

6. Can you tell the ‘spur’ thing bugs me? You spur a horse that’s not trying very hard or moving very fast. You spur a horse because horses are too stupid to know which way they’re supposed to go on their own. You dig your metal into its flank and keep your bit in its mouth so it will remain compliant – an extension of your own purposes. Spurring suggests schools and teachers get F’s because they’re just not trying very hard. They’re meandering, munching some grass, peeing a long time – just standing there until the SDE comes to do some spurrin’. Giddy-up go, Ms. Hernandez – giddy-up, go! Because you know what grade a horse really wants? A neighhhhh…

7. Choose any “low-performing school” near you. Give them a call and ask what the OKSDE has done to “support” them lately – or the state for that matter. Teachers are expected to address problem areas, find solutions, build success; all state leadership seems willing to do in practice is label and publish. Useless.

8. Grants to the good schools? I’d never heard of this one before. How adorable – it’s the White Man’s Burden, Education Edition. We’re going to further reward upper-middle-class-two-parent-family schools for explaining to the high-poverty-broken-world schools what they’re doing so badly! “Have you tried getting your kids to be less… poor? Are you familiar with the need for more ‘grit’?”

9. May I see the numbers on increased parent and community involvement based on low scores on this “report card”? Can I get in on this “conversation”? Dr. Barresi echoes this talking point in the Tulsa World when asked about the mass of research demonstrating the “grades” with which she bludgeons schools are not merely pointless, but demonstrably harmful and deceptive:

“The grade card may be cursed, it may be praised, but it sure is causing conversation in the state of Oklahoma,” Barresi said.

Adrian Peterson should try this approach: “Well, my disciplinary techniques may be cursed, or they may be praised, but they’re sure… (*patronizing chuckle*) causing conversation.”]

After this FAQ, the next item provided to explain the whole A-F system is this letter from the OKSDE’s own “Executive Director of Accountability.” He proceeds to contradict pretty much everything explained in the FAQ.

I’ll excerpt the essentials:

…we must ensure that the A-F system is both understandable and interpreted appropriately. Therefore, it is important to have a clear idea of what it is — and isn’t — intended to measure.
The A-F Report Card is:
* An indicator of the percentage of students, regardless of background, within a school who are currently meeting or exceeding grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of the percentage of students (particularly the lower performing students) who are at least making significant progress toward meeting grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of whether schools are exceeding expectations in terms of school attendance, high school graduation, etc…
The A-F Report Card is not:
* A measure of the “school” or “teacher” effect on student learning.
* A statement about a school’s overall quality of services provided.

10. I love his concern that we make A B C D & F somehow “understandable” and “interpreted appropriately.” The reason you choose to format something in terms of commonly recognized symbols and terms is because everyone recognizes those symbols and terms. Divide your class into reading groups christened Eagles, Sharks, Otters, and Turtles, and no one has to guess which group is the slow one. If the OKSDE were worried people might think that A B C D & F means what it obviously and always means, perhaps they could have chosen other terms.

11. Suddenly now this whole A-F thing is about measuring students – are students meeting expectations? Are students making progress? According to the rest of the OKSDE, the only part students have in this whole thing is when they rise up with the community to strengthen… something or other. But according to Dr. Tamborski and his fancy title, it’s all about the students. The only thing schools are directly responsible for is making sure every kid on their roster gets up and to school every day. I assume this involves setting their alarms, maybe pouring them a bowl of Fruit Loops, that kind of thing – stuff it makes complete sense to hold schools exclusively accountable for. Not this other stuff.

12. Lest we continue in our ridiculous delusions, we are explicitly corrected – WITH QUOTIE ACCENTS – not to view these A-F Report Cards as a measure of the “school” or “teacher”. Seriously – why is “school” in “quotation marks”? I’m not “sure” for what “purpose” they’re being “used” here. In any case, I’m confused. If these report cards don’t allow “parents and community members” to “quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing,” what exactly will the students, parents, and communities be rising up to encourage excellence and performance OF?

13. The A-F card is not a measure of “teacher” effect on student learning? This part I can actually believe, since there’s a whole slew of other mechanisms in place to blame teachers for every kid they so much as see in the hallway, for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately he didn’t tell THE ENTIRE REST OF THE OKSDE, the media, the state legislature, or the state. They think it is.

14. These Report Cards are not a statment regarding a school’s quality? Seriously, do these people not even talk to one another? The building isn’t that big.

Perhaps the third and final link for public consumption can act as a sort of “tie-breaker” between the OKSDE and the OKSDE. It’s not a FAQ or a letter, but something called a Quick Reference Guide. Perfect! I can use it to quickly reference what the hell they’re talking about.

1969? What did one use to update web pages in 1969 – a hammer & chisel?

Well, OKSDE, if and when you get back from Woodstock or whatever, please consider reposting that reference guide. I can’t wait to see which side of your conflicting explanations it agrees with. In the meantime, I know I’m feeling much better about the accuracy and consistency of these A-F grades you’ve published now that I’ve seen the care and clarity you bring to explaining what they are and what they aren’t.

Related Post: Assessments & Grades – Why?

Ms. Bullen’s Data-Rich Year

April 25, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

You ever across something while browsing online, and wish you hadn’t? I believe it was Tosh.0 that did a segment called “Things You Can’t Unsee.” Sometimes they just gross you out, or cause emotional distress, and sometimes they’re just inappropriately violent or pornographic or just plain wrong.

This one is none of those, except perhaps ‘just plain wrong.’ It’s from the OKSDE website, and of course it’s about Data-Tracking, and Value Added Measurement, and all sorts of other bureaucratic verbiage designed to disguise a much simpler phrase, “blame everything on teachers whatever it takes.” It’s also the death knell of my efforts to focus on the positives in education.

Here is what the State of Oklahoma – and the State Department of Education in particular – thinks of you, the teacher, represented here by dear Ms. Bullen:

I know you can’t read the small print yet, but already a few things are clear:

(1) VAM / TLE / State Data in General is designed to consciously require a giant graphic full of small print to even begin to understand.

(2) The OK SDE / State Legislature is glad you’re not married and thus presumably lack any sort of a family, otherwise you’d never be able to put in the kind of time outside the school day we’re expecting. So much for a pay scale based on having a spouse with a real job! [Confused Reader: “But, married women can use the ‘Ms.’ – it’s marital status neutral, that’s the whole point.” Me: “Clearly you’ve never been to Oklahoma.”]

(3) The OK SDE / State Legislature is under the impression you are approximately nine years old. (In which case I suppose it’s just as well you’re not married.) On the other hand, if you can find Waldo in this picture, you may get a sticker!

Let’s take a closer look at a few parts of this wonderful chart:

(4) On zooming in, I think we have a much better idea why Ms. Bullen is not married. Elective cosmetic surgery is such a risky venture – just ask Kenny Rogers, Bruce Jenner, or Ms. Bullen. Yikes!

(5) How wonderful that Ms. Bullen is able to use one of those pesky PD days before school begins for something so unlikely to develop her as a professional. Instead, she can spend her time labeling, tracking, and otherwise pre-judging her students based on how they did last year. Given that she’ll have approximately 170 of them, this might take several days, comfortably cut off from her department, administration, or other professionals. But all the best educational studies show, of course, that the ideal way to tap into a child’s full potential is to form judgments about their abilities and potential before you’ve even met them!

(6) It seems I’ve been a little unfair in assuming this will all be on Ms. Bullen, as Joey apparently comes from a very involved two-parent family. Plus, Ms. Bullen’s principal has nothing but time to help design IEPs for all 1,246 students in the building, so that’s not really a problem – unless he or she also wishes to complete all 73 levels of the required Teacher Leader Evaluation System for every adult in the building as well. But, some of the burden can be shared by the many Tutors and Trainers in the building.

Hey, you know what would be fun? Let’s each stop for a moment and see if we can remember the name(s) of the Tutor(s) and Trainer(s) in our buildings who will help us with all of this when it’s our turn…

How did you do? If you came up with “none of these positions even exist,” you get another sticker, just like they do in Tennessee!

(7) You are expected to create an IEP for each and every one of your students before school even begins! (Step Two) Setting aside the fact that this is insane, it’s still nine full steps before Step Eleven, where an ‘early warning system’ (which appears to be an iPad app) will send an alert to a strange man in the room that Joey is off-track, or failing. Presumably the strange man will tell Ms. Bullen, who can call Joey’s very involved parents in to look at the full-sized mural she’s devoted to the Chutes & Ladders version of Joey’s educational journey. Thank god there’s finally a way to know when students are failing – other than the fact that they’re, for example, failing.

(8) You are expected to immediately discard the approximately 170 IEP’s you’ve spent weeks creating so you can “adjust instruction on the fly” (Step Three) based solely and exclusively on the perceived reactions of Joey. We can only hope the 34 other students in the room are not offended at the impact this must have on their individualized learning experience. At the same time, this is a great moment – it’s the only point in All 18 Steps that assumes for even an instant that you (represented here by Ms. Bullen) have any idea what you’re doing without consulting a few dozen spreadsheets of data. But don’t worry – you won’t be stuck teaching ‘on the fly’ for long!

(9) You will have plenty of time to meet one on one with each of your students (Step Six) to discuss their behavior, attendance data (which is different from attendance… how?), and performance, as well as what Joey’s parents want for him – during the one moment in which is overly involved parents are conspicuously absent. You’ll set some individualized goals for the year to replace that IEP you developed before you met him, then threw out in Step Three.

Assuming you have approximately 168 students, and that each of these meetings take about 10 minutes, that’s only about… 28 hours each week. Or is it each month? I’m not sure how often this one is supposed to happen. Let’s assume it’s just once – it’s not like Joey’s performance, behavior, goals, or attendance are likely to change throughout the year. So we’ll just use that extra 28 hours floating around during, say… October. Nothing that important happens in October anyway.

(10) I’m not sure what “Data Coaches” are (Step Seven), although each school apparently has several (they must share office space with all the Tutors and Trainers – no wonder Oklahoma schools are so darned inefficient with how they spend district money!) Apparently while teachers celebrate their one collective decent idea, the Data Coaches do some sort of ceremonial handshake – or perhaps it’s a dance. I’m not familiar with that culture, but I’d really like to see that. There simply aren’t enough dances based on hard educational data.

(11) The Building Principal, on the other hand, reviews “performance data” with Ms. Bullen, but don’t worry – he does it to “support and empower,” not “admonish” (Step Eight). You have to remember that Ms. Bullen is nine years old and unlikely to marry due to a botched elective cosmetic procedure – she cannot be treated like an adult and simply discuss how things are going with her class. Wait! I mean… with Joey. Just how things are going with Joey.

(12) We’ll skip ahead a few steps to where you can’t leave for the summer until you make sure Joey and each of your other 167 students are properly tracked and categorized for the next school year (Step Sixteen). It’s important Joey not have any input on what he might be interested in or challenge himself by taking advanced coursework. We don’t want to risk student engagement in a way that might threaten the data! It would actually be more efficient to simply divide the classes by socio-economic status, race, or educational level of whatever parental units happen to be in the picture, but we might miss a few outliers that way. So, we stick to DATA.

(13) Because you haven’t spent nearly enough time in data meetings for Steps One through Sixteen, and are assumed to have no idea how the year went based on the formal and informal assessments you give throughout the year, your relationship with each student, or anything else that might indicate you have a pulse, you’ll meet with your principal some more and work on your own Value Added Measurement numbers (Step Seventeen).

(14) This would be a great time for Ms. Bullen to lower than neckline a bit and talk to that building principal about making sure she doesn’t have any ELL, Integrated, or otherwise low-performing classes next year. Although she has a heart for struggling students like Joey, they’re totally killing her VAM scores. As Roster Verification and Teacher Linkage become dominant, she’s growing rather resentful of any little turd that hurts her scores and means she’s not getting the merit pay those Pre-AP teachers probably will. I suggest some aggressive accessorizing to distract from those rectangular lips.

(15) You and the other district teachers will spend your summers looking at data on your own time (Step Eighteen), although you’re barely paid for the required 180 days you’ve already spent at school. Only when you pass through the gate painted to look like that trip to Six Flags you can never afford are you free to begin tracking and prejudging next year’s students based on their test scores.

Of course, you’re not in this profession for the summers, or the money, or the remnants of hope you had only a few years ago – that’s not what teaching is about. You have something better than a sense of purpose to what you do, or remnants of self-respect, or even the resources to take your family on even a modest trip – you have data.

Congrats Ms. Bullen! You may have low VAM scores, endless meetings, no summers to yourself, and no money to try to fix that botched surgery, but you’ve had a data-rich year!